Prime Minister Under Pressure to Reinstate Hard Shoulders on Smart Motorways

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has been urged to bring back the hard shoulder on so-called smart motorways.

About 10 percent of England’s motorway network consists of smart motorways, which were designed to increase capacity without adding extra traffic lanes.

The first section of all-lane running (ALR) smart motorway, using the hard shoulder as a continuous live traffic lane, opened on the M25 in Hertfordshire a decade ago.

However, these smart motorways have faced criticism and evidence suggests they have led to more fatal incidents as stranded vehicles in the inside lane pose a hazard.

The RAC’s head of policy, Simon Williams, commented, “There is irony in discussing cost pressures with these unpopular motorways.”

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“Despite being seen as a cost-effective way to enhance capacity on congested roads, a significant amount of public money has been spent to improve their safety, such as implementing radar-based technology to detect stranded vehicles more effectively, and adding additional emergency refuge areas,” he explained.

Mr. Williams stated, “This expenditure could have been avoided. The government proceeded with constructing all-lane running motorways despite concerns raised by drivers, the RAC, and even the Transport Committee.”

On June 7, 2019, Jason Mercer, 44, and Alexandru Murgeanu, 22, lost their lives to a lorry on the M1 motorway near Sheffield. They were by their stationary vehicles after a minor collision.

Truck driver Prezemyslaw Szuba, responsible for the incident, expressed during his trial that, “If there had been a hard shoulder on that section of the motorway, the accident could have been avoided. I would have passed those two cars safely and they would have made it home without harm.”

Coroner Warned of ‘Risk of Future Deaths’ in 2021

Following an inquest in 2021, South Yorkshire Coroner David Urpeth highlighted the “ongoing risk of future deaths” associated with smart motorways.

The Department for Transport has invested over £1.5 billion in transforming traditional motorways by removing the hard shoulder and replacing it with occasional laybys, among other changes.

The intention was for overhead gantry signs to indicate a red X in the event of a breakdown or accident, informing drivers not to use that lane to prevent accidents.

However, according to a National Highways report released in December, smart motorways without hard shoulders are three times more hazardous to break down on than those with emergency lanes.

Between 2017 and 2021, the rate of people killed or seriously injured after a stopped vehicle was hit by a moving vehicle was 0.21 per 100 million vehicle miles on ALR smart motorways, compared to 0.10 on traditional motorways.

He admitted that only 13 out of 150 ERAs had been installed since the prime minister allocated funds to retrofit them on smart motorways.

A Department for Transport spokesperson stated, “Although smart motorways are statistically among the safest roads in our network, we understand the importance of public confidence in road safety, and have scrapped plans for new smart motorway projects.”

He added, “We are also investing £900 million to enhance existing smart motorways, including constructing more emergency areas on these roads.”

PA Media contributed to this report.