Safety ramped up for smart motorways

No new smart motorways without hard shoulders will be built unless they've got radar technology to spot stranded vehicles.

Highways England's made a commitment to also install such a system on existing carriageways, known as Stopped Vehicle Detection (SVD).

It's over safety concerns.

Work to convert the M27 in to a smart motorway is continuing with completion expected this summer.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps launched an action plan launched in March 2020 included a deadline of rolling out SVD across the entire network by March 2023, but this will now be completed by September next year.

There is growing concern over all lane running (ALR) smart motorways - which involve the hard shoulder being converted into a running lane - due to several fatal accidents involving stationary vehicles being hit from behind.

Fourteen people were killed in 2019 on motorways where the hard shoulder was either permanently removed or being temporarily used as a live running lane, according to Sunday Times analysis.

In a written ministerial statement, Mr Shapps stated: "Great Britain has some of the safest roads in the world and, although per hundred million miles driven there are fewer deaths on smart motorways than conventional ones, we are determined to do all we can to help drivers feel safer and be safer on our roads.''

A coroner in Sheffield claimed in January that smart motorways "present an ongoing risk of future deaths'' after two people were killed when a lorry driver ploughed into their vehicles while they were stationary on the M1 in South Yorkshire.

The Commons' Transport Select Committee is conducting an inquiry into smart motorways, with chairman and Tory MP Huw Merriman warning there are "genuine worries'' about the roads.