Smart motorways will FINALLY get an overhaul

The £1.6billion smart motorway programme will be given a major overhaul after ministers admitted they are not as safe as they should be.

The 18-point ‘action plan’ recommending sweeping changes was slipped out yesterday on a tumultuous day for coronavirus-related news.

Since they were first introduced in 2006 road bosses have insisted the routes – where the ‘hard shoulder’ is repurposed to ease congestion – are safer because they have regularly spaced emergency laybys.

But MPs, motoring groups and victims’ families have raised serious concerns following a spate of fatal accidents resulting from drivers becoming stranded in ‘live lanes’ of traffic.

Yesterday’s report revealed there had been 44 smart motorway-related deaths since 2015. As part of the changes, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps confirmed the existing 60 miles of ‘dynamic’ smart motorways – where the hard shoulder is used as a normal lane at peak times – will be scrapped entirely because they cause too much confusion.

Instead, they will be converted to permanent ‘all lane running’ routes without a hard shoulder.

Mr Shapps said: ‘I am clear that there is more we can do to raise the bar on smart motorway safety. The extended package of measures I have set out will help rebuild public confidence in our motorway network and ensure safety is firmly at the heart of the programme.’

But the grieving widow of a man killed on a smart motorway yesterday blasted the Transport Secretary’s plans as ‘offensive’. Claire Mercer angrily dismissed Mr Shapps’s 18-point plan as ‘nothing but compromises’.

Claire’s husband Jason, 44, was killed when he pulled over to exchange details with a fellow motorist after they had a minor accident on the M1. She said: ‘This is just offensive. Grant Shapps actually rang me last night to run the proposals past me and I think he was hoping I would say OK to them so he could say I rubber-stamped it.

‘But I absolutely do not approve of the plans, I’m very angry about them. He thinks he can smooth this over and he is trying to do a PR job, but it won’t work.’

Highways England, the state-owned firm which is responsible for the roll-out, has been ordered to increase the number of emergency refuge areas.

Currently, the maximum gap between refuges is 1.5 miles. But that will now be cut to one mile at most, with a three-quarter-of-a-mile gap ‘where feasible’.

Ministers have also ordered road chiefs to roll out radar technology that detects stopped vehicles across the entire network within three years.

Last year, Highways England boss Jim O’Sullivan admitted that lives had been lost due to delays in setting the system up. Stranded drivers have to wait an average of 17 minutes to be met by recovery teams. The Department for Transport now wants the average brought down to ten minutes.

As well as this, officials have promised a significant increase in cameras to catch drivers who stray into red ‘X’ lanes – with drivers automatically fined £100 and given three points.

Jim O’Sullivan, chief executive of Highways England said there will be a ‘prime time TV advertising campaign for the first time’ about smart motorway safety, as well as publicity online and on the radio. He said: ‘We’re going to be spending £5million to get our message across – and doubling our communications budget for the coming year from £5million to £10million.’