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Expertise designed to maintain drivers secure on sensible motorways continuously stops working, an investigation has discovered.
There have been lots of of incidents when security tools was out of motion in recent times, newest figures present.
AA president Edmund King stated these failures are “each driver’s worst nightmare” as he referred to as for laborious shoulders to be reinstated on all sensible motorways the place they’ve been eliminated.
Nationwide Highways insists proof reveals all kinds of sensible motorways are safer than typical motorways by way of deaths or severe accidents, and a sequence of security enhancements have been made since 2021.
Some 193 miles of all-lane operating (ALR) sensible motorways – which use the laborious shoulder as a everlasting stay visitors lane – had been in-built England to extend capability at a decrease price than widening roads.
There have been long-standing security issues after deadly incidents by which autos stopped in stay lanes had been hit from behind.
Digital camera and radar methods have been deployed in an try to identify stranded autos, however figures obtained by Panorama in response to a freedom of data request present there have been 397 incidents of energy outages on sensible motorways between June 2022 and February 2024.
Sensible motorways
Examples of security know-how being lower off for a number of days embrace:
– No indicators, indicators, digital camera or radar at Junction 18 on the M6 for 5 days in July 2023;
– No indicators, indicators or CCTV at Junction 22 on the M62 for 5 days in September 2023;
– No indicators, indicators, sensors or CCTV at Junction 6 on the M5 for 3 days in December 2023.
The longest energy failure was at Junction 14 on the M4, the place there have been no indicators or sensors for 11 days.
There have been 174 energy outages within the six months to February 2024 – the latest interval lined by the figures – which is equal to almost one every single day.
Mr King stated: “We now have been exposing the risks of sensible motorways for greater than a decade and have made representations to greater than a dozen transport secretaries and ministers.
“4-fifths of our members inform us that they need sensible motorways scrapped and the laborious shoulder reinstated.
“Now’s the time to cease this failed experiment. Efforts have been made to retrofit security at nice expense, however you may by no means absolutely right such a flawed design.
“We’re calling on all political events to abolish sensible motorways.
“The Panorama investigation questions what occurs when the know-how fails, which is each driver’s worst nightmare.”
A Nationwide Highways report printed in December final 12 months revealed that sensible motorways and not using a laborious shoulder had been 3 times extra harmful to interrupt down on than these with an emergency lane.
The variety of individuals killed or critically injured after a stopped car was hit by a shifting car was 0.21 per 100 million car miles travelled on ALR sensible motorways between 2017 and 2021.
That compares with 0.07 on managed sensible motorways, which have variable velocity limits however retain a tough shoulder, and 0.10 on typical motorways.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak cancelled all future deliberate sensible motorway tasks in April final 12 months, citing monetary pressures and a scarcity of public confidence within the roads.
