Growing concerns around the safety of smart motorways have led to Highways England agreeing to install extra emergency lay-bys on this new type of road to give drivers more opportunities to stop if they break down or are involved in an accident.
The purpose of smart motorways
At present, the maximum gap there should be between emergency lay-bys is 1.5 miles but this is going to be reduced to 1 mile where possible to provide reassurance to drivers who may be worried about driving on a motorway which has no hard shoulder available.
Smart motorways have been created to help to ease congestion and improve capacity by opening up the hard shoulder to traffic to give motorists an extra lane to use, but AA president Edmund King has stated that this should not be done at the expense of safety.
In fact, an AA survey carried out in 2016 showed that many drivers think that smart motorways are ‘death zones’ and also described emergency lay-bys as ‘desperate unreachable havens’ which suggests that many of the people who use these roads do not feel safe when doing so.
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Smart motorway safety review
Now that Highways England has completed a smart motorway safety review they have seen that more emergency lay-bys should be created, especially in high-risk areas, to help motorists to avoid being hit from behind at speed should they experience an issue and have to stop in a live lane.
Unfortunately, an accident of this nature did occur over the festive period in Cheshire when a broken down family car was hit by a lorry at around 60mph while they were using a section of road which was being prepared to be a smart motorway so had no hard shoulder. Luckily they escaped with minor injuries but this may not always be the case, and steps should be taken to ensure that this kind of incident does not happen again.
Currently sections of the M25, M1, M4 and M6 have been converted into smart motorways and there are 480 miles of smart motorway lanes planned for the future, so it is vital that safety is looked at seriously to ensure that those sections yet to be built give drivers plenty of opportunities to leave the road should they break down or have an accident.
Knowing the laws
Those using smart motorways also seem to be confused about what it means when a red X is being displayed over a lane, as more than 25,000 motorists have been sent warning letters for driving in these lanes when they shouldn’t be. Individuals have not been charged for this in the past but it is understood that police will start fining for this violation in the next few months.
This suggests that perhaps people need to be given detailed explanations about what smart motorways are and how they work as this will help them to avoid fines and drive safely while they are using them.
It is also important for those driving on smart motorways to keep their cars well maintained which will mean that they are less likely to break down and cause an issue. For example, checking oil and water levels, filling up with petrol and windscreen washer fluid, and topping up tyre pressures, are all ways in which cars can be prepared for the roads, especially when a long journey is planned.
Offering reassurance to drivers
Hopefully, this new move by Highways England will help motorists to use smart motorways with confidence and without the fear that they will be stuck in a dangerous position should they break down during their journey.
With more emergency lay-bys, with shorter distances between them, to take advantage of should the worst happen, drivers should no longer see them as being ‘unreachable havens’ and should see them as being an option that will be available to them when they need one.
Have you ever had to use an emergency lay-by? Do you find expanded motorways increasingly daunting? Let us know your thoughts down below.
Having worked as a fire Brigade Officer and also as a vehicle recovery operator on Motorways. I see a disaster waiting to happen.
The authorities must rethink this one, probably after a disaster. There are too many people in this country and therefore too many vehicles.
Getting rid of hard shoulders is absolute madness how long and how many accidents will it take before the powers to be realize how dangerous it is to break down in what will become the inside lane.
M£ is also a smart motorway north from junction 4.
The M3 north of junction 4 is also a smart motorway.
Someone has already died between J26-27 on the M25 clockwise. This is widening on the cheap and until there is a major incident where there are multiple fatalities then the government will carry on with this type of widening .
Once again the m621 west bound out of Leeds was stationary for over half an hour last night 1900 hrs 25/1/18. The happens about once a month and is caused by brakedowns on the M62 westbound. In the case of emergency`s the sevices can only get to the seen by traffic trying to move to one side or the other leaving very narrow paths for them to get through at very low speed ensuring response times are low.
Notice it happens on the M5, almost a daily basis. A lorry broke down & it was nearly an hour before it was removed. Another day a crane caught fire, emergency services closed the motorway for a while then managed to open one lane. Traffic held up for miles & several hours before normal traffic resumed. Neither of these were accidents but caused a lot of disruptions. I travel on the M5 quite regularly and do not feel safe without the hard shoulder and grateful when I reach the section with a hard shoulder. I also do not like the fact they remove the street lights. I believe a woman was killed on the M25 recently converted to a smart motorway and the street lights had been removed, she had no power because an electric fault & a lorry did not see her in the dark & crashed into her.
Oh that’s good, if you break down you only have to push your car for up to 1 mile now instead of 1.5, as presumably you can’t go backwards to the nearest one. Try doing that with a flat or shredded tyre. Who on earth makes these decisions? Probably people who never actually drive anywhere so don’t see how short-sighted their proposals are. It’s sad that they have to wait until someone dies before they revise their plans. Surely if they listen to motoring organisations they would see sense?
“presumably can’t go backwards”??!!
In a live lane?…. I doubt it.
I’m hoping your comment was deliberate understatement rather than demonstrating the red X part.
Multiple Alasdair’s.
Yesterday I used the M42 which is an early build SMART motorway. The motorway is precarious to drive for two reasons; firstly the aggressive interchange movement between lanes by some vehicles, and the almost random speed limit changes. I try to minimize my use of any SMART motorway , because the Highways Patrols are all to keen to have lane closures and cause traffic queues for minor breakdowns– all because the “emergency lay-bys” are too few in number.
The final insult is the “tax gathering “speed cameras enforcing the speed
limits !!!
I think this whole issue demonstrates how safety is secondary to saving money.
Be in no doubt, the government only cares for people in as far as it can get money from the people.
Bear in mind we should really see some statistics on accidents per mile of regular vs SMART motorways, rather than assuming they’re inherently more dangerous. It seems like a logical assumption, but still…
Is it just my present circumstance right now which is causing me to see a significant drop in standard in vehicle maintenance?
I must find more information but I suspect economic squeeze and ever more complicated anti pollution controls fitted to vehicles is starting to reverse the better reliability trend and make breakdowns more common.
Ironic.
Not only do the refuge areas need to be much closer together, but they need to be much longer.
The current ones are nowhere near long enough to allow you to reach motorway traffic speed before re-joining the motorway.
In other words joined together….oh that’s called a hard shoulder.
You don’t need to get to speed as you are not allowed to leave the refuge area without a highways agency escorts.
Compulsory purchase the land next to the motorway, if it’s not already owned by the authorities, and lay another hard shoulder, simples.
These lay-bys are fine and a good idea…….until…….Johnnie Foreigner thinks its ok to pull up and park overnight like happens on the M25 !!!!
“….family car was hit by a lorry at around 60mph while they were using a section of road which was being prepared…”
How can a Lorry do around 60mph in a 50 mph speed camera zone, and more especially when a lorry can only do 56mph flat out speed??
Smart motorway is a cheap fix for more lanes. The M74/ M8 upgrade in Scotland, they made the extra lane by digging out behind & under any bridges and replacing other ones, this was all done in less time than one section of the smart motorway on the M6 and also included more lanes connecting the M73 and on it too.
Questions must be asked: Why is the M6 “smart motorway” so slow to upgrade, and even at that, while it is not built for purpose with no hard shoulder?
Smart motorways are a disaster waiting to happen. The problem is, this will not be addressed, until after there is multiple deaths, I’m sorry to say….
Getting rid of hard shoulder is a disaster waiting to happen, as aretired class1 HGV driver I have seen a lot and the motorways are much busier today. Lay-by’s every 1.5 miles so hope they are not going to move them to space at 1 mile as that’s about the inteligence of goverments, maybe it would be more cost effective to put one in betreen those already there making them 0.75 miles apart. Maybe on new motorways they should consider a wider central reservation area so vehicles in right hand lane having a problem could roll onto that area every so far, could be safer.
SMART is the wrong word. There is nothing remotely smart about removing a hard shoulder and making it a live lane in order to increase capacity. The hard shoulder is already a dangerous place to be at the best of times, but stopping in a live lane, no matter how well monitored it is or how well intentioned the red cross idea is, is a recipe for disaster. In addition, the hard shoulder provides an invaluable resource for emergency vehicles to reach accidents safely and promptly as well as providing space to move damaged vehicles to to allow the main carriageway to reopen after an accident. Good idea on paper, rubbish idea in action.
It’s not even a good idea on paper.
The name Smart motorways should be changed to Deathtrap motorways. Everyone I talked to could not believe the penny pinching method of saving money by putting peoples lives at risk. Now they are thinking of changing the lay-bys to every mile ridiculous . they should be where the space allows continuous. Never mind a few more people killed and months of delays whilst they build new lay-bys. every mile how does that work when they are already built at 1 1/2 mile intervals. How many millions has this wasted.
Smart motorways – devices proposed by and designed by idiots. For example, the M42 will have a sign which says congestion use the left hand lane. This is often followed down the road by another sign saying the left hand lane is to be used for the exiting at the next junction only. Unneccessary lane changing is created and lane changing is the cause of many accidents.
Reinstate ‘hard shoulders’!
On several occasions now I have seen broken down vehicles on the smartarse section of the M62 and the lane is still running – even though the occupants of the vehicle have had time to leave it and stand by the roadside. We’re told that these motorways are actively monitored and that if you have to stop in the hard shoulder the lane will be instantly closed – this is just not true. In these cases, minutes must have passed and the lane was still open, and in the cases I saw it was being run at 60mph.
With this in mind, is it any wonder that people feel unsafe on these roads? Simply reducing the distance between refuge areas is not going far enough. If your vehicle comes to a stop you have no control over where exactly that happens. 1 mile is long way to be able to travel on momentum alone.
What I don’t understand is why the hard shoulder ever needs to be run above the lowest enforced limit of 40mph. Supposedly the hard should is only opened when necessary due to congestion – and when congestion is bad the limit is reduced to 40mph. So if the congestion is not bad enough to require a 40mph limit, why open the hard shoulder and increase danger for anyone needing to use it in order to stop?
Bring back Public Informations Films so drivers are aware of new rules and regulations and existing rules emphasised
That’ll be great, if they’re new there won’t be potholes for a little while….quick escape eh?