38 killed on smart motorways in last five years

[vagabondl.]

Thirty-eight people have been killed on smart motorways in the last five years, the government has told BBC Panorama.

It is the first time that the total number of deaths has been reported.

Smart motorways have been criticised because they do not have a hard shoulder and drivers who break down can be trapped in the speeding traffic.

The network is facing an overhaul with the results of a government review due to be announced shortly.

A Freedom of Information (FoI) request sent by Panorama to Highways England revealed that on one section of the M25, outside London, the number of near misses had risen 20-fold since the hard shoulder was removed in April 2014.

In the five years before the road was converted into a smart motorway there were just 72 near misses. In the five years after, there were 1,485.

A "near miss" is counted every time there is an incident with "the potential to cause injury or ill health".

The FoI request also revealed that one warning sign on the same stretch of the M25 had been out of action for 336 days.

The idea behind smart motorways was to improve the flow of traffic through the most congested parts of the network by using the hard shoulder as an extra lane.

There are currently 200 miles of smart motorway and another 300 miles are due to be converted by 2025.

There are around 90 deaths per year on the UK's motorway network as a whole, which covers about 2,300 miles of road.

The figure of 38 deaths over five years on the smart motorway network is significant because it only makes up a small proportion of the total miles of road.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told BBC Panorama he wants to fix smart motorways because they are too confusing for drivers.

 

 

 

He said: "We absolutely have to have these as safe or safer than regular motorways or we shouldn't have them at all."

A government review, the results of which are due to be announced shortly, is expected to recommend reforms to improve safety.

Panorama understands that radar will be fitted across the whole smart motorway network over the next three years.

The car detection system - which is currently only fitted on two sections of the M25 - can spot stranded vehicles as soon as drivers break down.

Nationally, motorists currently have to wait an average of 17 minutes to be spotted, and a further 17 minutes before they are rescued.

The government is also planning to scrap so-called dynamic hard shoulders, which are sometimes used as a hard shoulder and sometimes used as a live lane for traffic.

The BBC understands there will also be more emergency lay-bys.

It is unlikely to satisfy road safety campaigners.