March 29, 2024

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Smart motorway rollout was “entirely wrong”, transport secretary tells MPs

The secretary of state for transportation has criticised the way in which Highways England rolled out smart motorways, branding it “entirely wrong” and incorporating that motorists still don’t know how to generate on them effectively.

Speaking right before the Transport Committee, Grant Shapps condemned the truth that smart motorways “sprung up” with out a public information marketing campaign on what they have been and how they labored, leaving drivers baffled as to what to do if they split down in a are living lane.

Shapps also admitted his surprise at Highways England not acquiring applied stopped vehicle detection (SVD) engineering from the commence to decrease the time taken to spot broken-down cars. He stated that the deadline for SVD to be mounted on all stretches of smart motorway is getting brought forward from March 2023 to upcoming year.

The Division for Transport (DfT) beforehand executed an ‘evidence stocktake’ into smart motorways pursuing problems about their basic safety. This resulted in dynamic smart motorways – where the outer lane can change in between getting a hard shoulder and a are living functioning lane – getting abolished.

Meanwhile, all-lane functioning (ALR) smart motorways – where there is no hard shoulder – have been retained, with a determination to area crisis refuge places a few-quarters of a mile apart where feasible, and no extra than a person mile apart on any new stretches of ALR smart motorway.

Shapps told the Transport Committee that smart motorways are also costly to get rid of, as creating new hard shoulders on all of them would need the order of land equivalent to “700 Wembley stadiums”.

Calls for smart motorway assessment

Clever motorways turned the subject matter of scrutiny once more in January, when a coroner referred to as for a assessment of them after two adult men died when their stationary cars have been struck by a lorry on the M1.

Jason Mercer’s Ford Concentrate and Alexandru Murgeanu’s Ford Transit collided on a stretch of the M1 smart motorway where there is no hard shoulder. When the two drivers stopped to exchange details, they have been strike by a lorry getting driven by Prezemyslaw Szuba.

Szuba is at this time in prison, acquiring admitted to leading to demise by careless driving last year. Although Coroner David Urpeth stated Szuba’s inattention to the street was the key bring about of the two men’s fatalities, the inquest at Sheffield Town Corridor read that the incident might have been prevented if there experienced been a hard shoulder for Mercer and Murgeanu to prevent on.

Recording a verdict of illegal killing, Urpeth stated he would publish to Highways England and Grant Shapps, contacting for a assessment of smart motorways.

In a statement, Highways England stated: “We extend our deepest sympathies to the people of Alexandru Murgeanu and Jason Mercer. We recognise this proceeds to be an incredibly tough time for them.

“Every street demise is a tragic decline of existence. We are established to do all we can to make our streets as safe and sound as feasible and are currently addressing lots of of the factors raised… by the coroner as revealed in the Government’s Clever Motorway Evidence Stocktake and Action Program of March 2020. We will thoroughly look at any even more feedback elevated by the coroner at the time we get the report.”

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