Smart Motorways: Hitting The Brakes? - ITV Tonight
Forming around 375 miles of our highways, smart motorways use technology to assist the flow of traffic. This month the government announced a pause in the rollout whilst safety concerns are investigated. Our reporter, Ginny Buckley, investigates how dangerous smart motorways are and how we can make them safer.
There are three types of smart motorway: controlled, dynamic hard shoulder and all-lane-running. It is the latter, with no hard shoulder, that can worry some people when they have a breakdown.
Paramedic Karen Baker says its vital people allow emergency services access on the smart motorway
In October last year, Phil and Claire from Lancaster were driving down the M6 to Gloucestershire in their Morgan Three Wheeler when an electric component failed in the car. Stopping in a live lane approximately 50 yards from the nearest Emergency Refuge Area (ERA), they decided to climb out of their car and push it to safety.
In 2006, the very first pilot smart motorway was installed on the M42 in the West Midlands before changes were made for the wider rollout.
Sadly, 38 people were killed on smart motorways between 2014 and 2019. One person who has dedicated her time to improving road safety is Meera Naran. Her eight year old son, Dev, was killed in May 2018 after a lorry struck his grandfather's car on the hard shoulder of the M6 which was being used as a live lane.
In 2020, Meera proposed 19 policy changes to make roads safer and 18 of these were adopted by the government. They included speeding up the deployment of ‘stopped vehicle detection’ technology on smart motorways, reducing the distance between ERAs and explaining smart motorways in the highway code.
Meera is now pushing for better education:
Stopped vehicle detection is technology that will reduce the amount of time it takes for control room operators to be made aware of any stationary vehicles and for assistance to be deployed. National Highways say that every all lane running smart motorway will have stopped vehicle detection technology by the end of September 2022. They are also keen to further educate the public on driving safely:
For now, the rollout of any new all lane running smart motorways will be paused until 5 years of safety data has been collected. Current stretches of smart motorway will be upgraded with better technology and resources; there will be 150 extra emergency refuge areas installed and the Government has also committed £900 million to ensure drivers feel safe and confident.
Smart Motorways: Hitting the Brakes? will air on Thursday 27th January on ITV1 at 7:30pm.
Useful Websites
The AA - Guidance on what to do if you break down on a smart motorway
Transport Select Committee Report
The Highway Code guidance
National Highways - Understanding Red X signals