Motorways Smarting After Department For Transport Report
At the start of last weekend The Times reported Department for Transport figures that suggest the number of people killed or seriously injured on motorways is at its highest rate this decade, a claim which has prompted concern over the programme of reducing the UK’s hard shoulders.
Some 910 people died on motorways last year in Britain — that’s up eight per cent in just 12 months and the highest annual total since 2010.
Of course we are almost a decade on from that 2010 previous high and our motorways carry around 11% more vehicles than they did ten years ago
What worries the authorities is that this rise is against a trend towards a long-term decline in serious crashes on other roads.
Motorways accounted for 69.0 billion vehicle miles last year (2018), and they have been undergoing reform, with hard shoulders being pressed into service to create additional traffic lanes.
The smart motorway network services large parts of the country’s major motorways — the M25, M1, M6, M62, M4 and M3 — with others due to follow. To compensate for the loss of hard shoulders emergency lay-bys have been introduced and lane status and information on overhead gantries warn of breakdowns or accidents.
So the technology is there but there’s more to be done. Perhaps we should look to provide better information and education to those of us who passed our driving tests long before the advent of smart motorways — and look again at how well the physical infrastructure works.
An AA poll found that only around a third of drivers feel relaxed about driving on a smart motorway with intermittent lay-bys at every 1.5 miles and almost one in ten were extremely nervous or anxious on the upgraded motorway stretches.
I believe further enhancing the access to lay-bys is the answer; there is clearly a need to give those at the wheel more help.
The UK has had an excellent record of increased road safety over time and I believe that smart motorways will help accelerate safety gains. However, I do believe that we have to look at how smart motorways support today’s drivers more closely still.
The Telegraph ran a piece a few weeks ago pointing to the spacing of lay-bys as a big contributor to motorway safety.
Some MPs are questioning Highways England’s “continued prevarication” over its commitment to ensure lay-bys — Emergency Refuge Areas (ERAs) — are built closer together on motorways where the hard shoulder has been turned into a ‘live’ lane.
It was three years ago that a Commons Transport Committee report warned how lay-bys were “placed too scarcely” apart and could “lead to a driver being forced to stop in a live lane in the event of a breakdown.”
Highlighting how police, motoring organisations and vehicle recovery companies had warned stranded motorists could be hit by traffic, the committee recommended ERAs be no more than half-a-mile (800m) apart, with the closest spaced a third of a mile (500m). The AA is among a number of driving organisations that has campaigned for more emergency refuge areas.
There is no smoke without fire — if we must install more lay-bys to make people feel confident — then that is the price we should be prepared to pay.
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