MPs call for smart motorways to be suspended amid safety concerns

MPs have urged for the introduction of ‘all lane’ smart motorways to be delayed until their safety can be ensured.

While the government has maintained that smart motorways are just as safe as conventional ones, concerns arose after a report by the Commons’ Transport Select Committee (TSC) said there is not enough safety and economic data to justify continuing with the scheme, which sees the hard shoulder be used as a permanent live traffic lane to increase capacity. 

The report described the Government’s decision in March 2020 to make all future smart motorways all-lane-running versions as ‘premature’, while also stressing that the evidence available is ‘limited and volatile’.

Department for Transport / Flickr

Concerns were also raised following a number of fatal accidents involving broken-down vehicles being hit from behind – according to government figures obtained by BBC Panorama in 2020, thirty-eight people were killed on smart motorways between 2014 and 2019.

Controlled smart motorways – which only use the hard shoulder as a live traffic lane during peak periods – have the ‘lowest casualty rates’ of all roads across motorways and major A roads in England, the report also noted.

Tory MP Huw Merriman, who chairs the committee, said: “Looking at the available evidence, smart motorways do appear to be safer than conventional motorways even once the hard shoulder is removed.

“However, this evidence is also open to question. Only twenty-nine miles of these all-lane running smart motorways have operated for over five years. 

Number 10 / Flickr

“It therefore feels too soon, and uncertain, to use this as an evidence base to remove the hard shoulder from swathes of our motorway network.”

A Department for Transport spokesperson added: “We’re pleased that the committee recognises that reinstating the hard shoulder on all all-lane running motorways could put more drivers and passengers at risk of death and serious injury and that we’re right to focus on upgrading their safety, as the secretary of state committed to doing when he became transport secretary.”

Smart Motorways were first introduced back in 2014 as a cheaper method of increasing capacity compared to widening carriageways. Today, there are 375 miles of smart motorway across the country, including 235 miles without a hard shoulder.