Smart motorways UK: Roads bosses vow to speed up safety push after coroner’s ruling

Road chiefs have pledged to accelerate the rollout of potentially lifesaving safety measures on smart motorways following crisis talks with Transport Secretary Grant Shapps.

The minister ordered Highways England to bring forward the deadline for installing vital technology which can detect when vehicles are marooned and prevent collisions.

More CCTV is to be rolled out to improve the alert system used to warn drivers about broken-down vehicles ahead via signs on overhead gantries.

Mr Shapps and roads minister Baroness Vere met outgoing Highways England chief Jim O’Sullivan on Monday.

The Transport Secretary called the meeting after a coroner last week warned smart motorways present an ‘ongoing risk of future deaths’ after two drivers were killed on the M1 in Yorkshire. A coroner said the lack of a hard shoulder contributed to the deaths of Jason Mercer, 44, and Alexandru Murgeanu, 22, pictured, in 2019.

Mr Shapps told the Mail after this week’s meeting: ‘Highways England have assured me they can speed up work in certain areas.’ He added: ‘The safety and peace of mind of drivers and passengers using these routes is my priority and I will be monitoring Highways England’s progress very closely.’

Another meeting will be held on March 12. One of the key measures to be fast-tracked is the installation of a radar system which can spot marooned cars in 20 seconds. An AA analysis showed the technology has only been rolled out on 83.6 miles of smart motorway – leaving 523 miles to be fitted.

Mr Shapps told officials the deadline for this to be completed has been revised from 2023 to 2022. He also ordered more CCTV so closed-lane signs, which are marked with a red ‘X’ on gantries, can be initiated and enforced better. 

Smart motorways are controversial due to their hard shoulders being turned into a fourth ‘live’ lane, meaning cars that break down can get stuck in fast-moving traffic. Drivers can stop in orange-painted refuge areas, but they are spaced up to 1.5 miles apart. 

Motoring groups said Mr Shapps should have gone further by demanding Highways England immediately start retro-fitting 500 miles of smart motorway with more refuges so they are closer together.

AA president Edmund King said: ‘The new, safer standard of emergency lay-bys every three quarters of a mile should be implemented across the network… Advantage should be taken of lower traffic levels to do this work now.’ Nicholas Lyes, of the RAC, said: ‘Sadly, there appears to have been precious little progress with retrofitting to date.’

Last night Mr Mercer’s widow Claire, who is campaigning for smart motorways to be scrapped, said of Mr Shapps: ‘He’s the boss of transport so the fact he’s having to pull them [Highways England] in to do anything shows he’s been neglecting the situation.

‘These motorways shouldn’t have been opened without the vital technology in place.’

Highways England is facing possible manslaughter charges over the death of Nargis Begum, 62, who died on the M1 smart motorway in Yorkshire in 2018.

Two thirds of Britons think smart motorways are LESS safe than normal ones with hard shoulders and 57% are opposed to their use entirely, reveals YouGov poll  

ByLydia Catling For Mailonline

 

Two thirds of Britons think smart motorways are less safe than normal ones with hard shoulders and 57 per cent of people are opposed to their use entirely, a YouGov poll has revealed. 

The latest findings come just days after Dr Alan Billings, Police Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire, wrote to the Government saying the abolition of the hard shoulder should be ‘abandoned’ before more people die, branding them ‘inherently unsafe’. 

The poll found 64 per cent of Brits agree with Dr Billings’s claims that smart motorways are not as safe, while only seven per cent believed they were safer.

Thirty-eight people have been killed on smart motorways over a five-year period, the BBC reported last year.

Of those polled, the over 65s were found to be the most opposed to the use of smart motorways, with eight in ten saying they were less safe compared to traditional motorways. 

More than half (57%) of Britons said they opposed the use of smart motorways in Britain, with 34 per cent of those expressing that they were ‘strongly opposed’ to the concept. 

Opinions on their use are somewhat divided, with a quarter of those polled stating they supported smart motorways.  Only six per cent said they strongly support their implementation. 

Young people were much more split on the issue, with 38 per cent going against Dr Billings’s views and supporting the motorways and a further 27% claiming they didn’t know if they supported them or not. 

A whopping 79 per cent of over 65s said they were against them 

In a letter to Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, Dr Billings accused Highways England of trading ‘driver safety for lower costs’ and using ‘flawed’ logic to justify smart motorways, The Telegraph reports.   

It was sent just days after a coroner ruled that the deaths of two men on the M1 near Sheffield was in part due to turning the hard shoulder into a live lane.

The inquests into the ‘unlawful killings’ of Jason Mercer, 44, and Alexandru Murgeanu, 22, heard that smart motorways present an ‘ongoing risk of future deaths’.

Dr Billings wrote in his letter: ‘I think the coroner’s verdict makes it imperative now to abandon this type of motorway before more lives are lost.’ 

He says he attended a meeting with Highways England in January last year to ‘discuss road safety’, claiming they ‘sought to persuade me that smart motorways were as safe if not safer than the usual type of motorway’. 

Dr Billings said he believes their conclusion was arrived at through ‘flawed’ arguing, and it was not ‘helpful’ to compare collisions or deaths on the two types of motorway. 

He added: ‘The relevant test for us is whether someone who breaks down on this stretch of the motorway where there is no hard shoulder, would have had a better chance of escaping death or injury had there still been a hard shoulder – and the coroner’s verdict makes it clear that the answer to that question is: ”Yes”.’ 

Highways England has been ‘seduced by false comparisons’ to increase the number of lanes and aid traffic flow at a lower cost than if a hard shoulder had been built, Dr Billings claims. 

He says that while travelling on the M1, ‘anxiety and tension’ are increased due to fears of breaking down in a live lane with heavy goods vehicles approaching from behind at speed.  

According to the Department for Transport report, data for the first nine ‘all-lanes-running’ schemes – where a hard shoulder is turned into a fourth lane – showed deaths on the carriageway rose from an average of zero to 2.8 per year.

Figures for overall collisions in live lanes rose more than six-fold from an average of three per motorway to 19.

Meanwhile, serious crashes rocketed more than 23 times from 0.3 per year to seven, and slight collisions almost quadrupled, from 2.3 to 9.1. 

The figures are believed to relate to sections including those on the M1, M6 and M25.

In the 2019 Stocktake and Action Plan report, which used Highways England data, the DfT claimed the ‘risk of a collision involving a vehicle stopped in a live lane remains relatively small’ and overall accident figures for the roads reduced because of the elimination of hard-shoulder collisions.

The report recommended an 18-point action plan to improve safety. 

Last week, Coroner David Urpeth warned smart motorways present ‘an ongoing risk of future deaths’ as he gave verdicts of unlawful killing at an inquest. 

He ruled the lack of a hard shoulder had contributed to the deaths of Jason Mercer, 44, and Alexandru Murgeanu, 22.

The men were struck by a lorry after they had stopped to exchange details following a minor collision on the M1 near Sheffield in June 2019.

The HGV driver, Prezemyslaw Szuba, was jailed for ten months for causing death by careless driving last October.

Mr Mercer’s widow Claire, 44, said: ‘Smart motorways are a lot easier to turn off than they were to turn on. Just switch them off and stop killing people.’

Mrs Mercer, from Rotherham, is calling for police to investigate Highways England after the coroner said her husband could have survived a crash on the M1 if there was a hard shoulder. 

Mr Mercer, a contracts manager from Rotherham, South Yorkshire, had just joined the northbound carriageway at junction 34 at around 8.15am when he caused a minor collision with Mr Murgeanu’s delivery van.

Instead of driving to the nearest ‘refuge’ area a mile on, both drivers stopped on the inside lane. This decision was described as ‘unwise but understandable’ by the coroner at Sheffield Town Hall.

The van was parked behind the car with its hazard lights on.

The pair exchanged details and were standing between the two vehicles – rather than safely behind the crash barrier – when a lorry smashed into the van, killing both men instantly.

Speaking after the inquest, Mrs Mercer said: ‘After more than a year and a half of campaigning I today feel that somebody has listened and finally taken steps to address the use of these death trap roads.

‘Ever since Jason died I have been determined to bring about change to ensure more families don’t go through the heartbreak of losing a loved one by the completely nonsensical removal of hard shoulders on busy motorways, without adequate safeguards being in place.’

Mrs Mercer warned that further tragedies would follow unless immediate action was taken.

‘Can you imagine the absolute horror of being on a motorway having broken down with no dedicated safe area to pull into and with vehicles hurtling towards you?

‘Equally, can you imagine being a driver who, like the man driving the lorry which crashed into Jason and Alexandru, suddenly sees a stranded vehicle in their path? Imagine living with the thought of killing somebody. It’s horrendous.

‘We are humans. We make mistakes on the roads and we need somewhere to get safe. We have taken a first step today to protecting the lives of others. For that I am delighted.’

Mrs Mercer’s solicitor, Neil Hudgell, called for a public inquiry.

Several others have been killed on smart motorways, including grandmother Nargis Begum, 62, who died after her broken down car was hit on the M1 in South Yorkshire in 2018.

Mrs Begum was being driven by husband Mohammed Bashir, 67. They left their Nissan Qashqai to wait for help but another car hit the vehicle, sending it into her.

Eight-year-old Dev Naran was killed on the M6 in Birmingham in 2018 after his family’s car became stranded on a hard shoulder being used as a live lane.

At the inquest into the youngster’s death, coroner Emma Brown expressed concerns about the ‘risk to life from the loss of the hard shoulder’.   

Smart motorways are controversial because cars that break down can be marooned in fast-moving traffic. They have refuge areas where drivers can stop every mile or so.

There are around 500 miles of them in England, including sections of the M1, M4, M5, M6, M25 and M62. 

Highways England said one in 12 motorway deaths happened on hard shoulders. There have been 44 deaths on smart motorways in total. A spokesman said: ‘We are determined to do all we can to make our roads as safe as possible…’

A Department for Transport spokesman said smart motorways are in most ways as safe as or safer than conventional ones.