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In these sorts of accidents, apparently, one of two things can happen: your car can be thrown to the right, into the path of speeding traffic or the central barrier, in which case your chances or not good. Or, as in my case, you can be thrown to the left, in which case – if you are lucky, if your steering still works, and the cars behind brake in time – you have a chance of ending up on the hard shoulder.
And that is what happened: a badly damaged car, a lot of laminated glass all over, but neither my husband nor I injured. According to the receptionist at the hotel where we spent the night, accidents like this are a routine occurrence – not helped on the Channel routes by the number of foreign lorries with mirrors either misplaced or unheeded by their drivers.
It should not need to be said that anyone involved in this sort, or indeed any sort, of accident on a ‘smart motorway’ is going to be very fortunate indeed to land at the very place where the powers-that-be have decided to place a refuge. You might be able to do that if you break down, but it is almost impossible if you have been struck by another vehicle. And if you cannot make it to a refuge, you are essentially immobile on a standard motorway lane. Whether you are in or out of your car as the next lorry thunders towards you – as in the case considered by the Sheffield coroner – is not going to make much difference.
Were the perils of ‘smart motorways’ something new, I would be endorsing Mr Urpeth’s call for a review. But they are not. There has already been a review (of a kind). Following Mr Apter’s intervention, the Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, announced a moratorium on all new ‘smart motorways’ pending a review. Published last March, this prescribed more frequent refuge areas and the rolling out of radar to detect stranded vehicles. Apart from these, and a few other changes, the programme would go on.
Panorama and Mr Apter, however, were by no means the first to call for action on ‘smart motorways’. The House of Commons select committee on transport had held an inquiry of its own a full five years before, which had published a damning report the following year calling for an immediate halt to the programme.
The nub of the issue, it transpired, was that the concept of a ‘smart motorway’ had undergone an apparently small, but crucial, change since first broached. The original idea had been to copy some continental systems, which allow the hard shoulder to be used as an extra lane at busy times and then to revert to its original purpose. This would mostly be around urban areas, where speeds are generally slower, either because of limits or because of the weight of traffic. Such a system was introduced 15 years ago on a stretch of the M42 near Solihull, with few questions asked.
Somewhere along the way, though, this ‘smart’ concept mutated into a purely British variant known as ‘all-lane running’ – which is the not-so-smart motorway that is multiplying today, where the hard shoulder is permanently lost and ‘replaced’ by refuges.
When MPs published their report, the conclusions were damning. They accused the Department of Transport of allowing cost considerations to override safety and recommended ‘an immediate halt to the roll-out of All-Lane Running’, with proposed schemes to be replaced along original, M42, lines.
The Transport Department’s response, which came three months later, was breathtaking in its complacency. Apparently, relieving congestion by providing an extra lane took precedence over the obvious dangers to life and limb from the permanent removal of the hard shoulder, and MPs had no business objecting.
It denied that the permanent removal of the hard shoulder was ‘a radical change’ and essentially blamed motorists for any problems. What was needed was ‘more effective engagement to improve public perception and raise road user awareness of the differences of All-Lane Running’. It also rejected calls for a halt to the programme, insisting that ‘our motorways and major ‘A’ roads are among the safest in the world…The evidence to date of All-Lane Running shows it maintains that high safety standard.’
It is true that UK roads used to be among the safest in the world, and motorways among the safest of those roads, though casualty rates have recently inched up. The notion that ‘smart motorways’ are no more dangerous than others, however, is not the point. People are being killed and injured as a result of their use who would otherwise be alive and well. Plus – as Panorama pointed out – there is evidence of hair-raising near-misses, as I can attest. Even where there is technology to indicate a closed lane, it cannot respond quickly enough to an obstruction. The result may not be an actual collision, but it can be a lot of swerving and screeching of brakes at 70 mph.
Over the years, I have driven long distances in many parts of the world. The country whose roads I was happiest to leave was Poland, where a diabolical combination of bad design, poor maintenance and, how shall we say, an optimistic style of driving makes driving a lottery. A favoured technique – from side roads to motorways – is to create impromptu extra lanes to facilitate overtaking. The result is a poor man’s ‘smart motorway’. The UK’s version is almost as lethal, with far less of an excuse.
Because you read about cars
Also by Mary Dejevsky
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