Smart Motorways: a U-turn too late?

In one of his essays, George Orwell pilloried the use of “political language” – consisting “largely of euphemism, question begging and sheer cloudy vagueness”, said Leo McKinstry in the Daily Express.

A prime modern example of such “linguistic deceit and waffle” is the term “smart motorway”, to describe a road in which the hard shoulder has been turned into a live lane.

‘Active traffic management’

The Government embraced the idea as a means of easing congestion; and traffic planners assured worried motorists that with “active traffic management” – radar-based cameras and electronic signs – they’d be safe if they broke down in “thundering traffic” without access to a dedicated emergency space.

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But campaigners were never convinced, and now – following a spate of deadly accidents – the Government has finally come to its senses: last week, it decreed that plans for more smart motorways (14 schemes in total) will all be cancelled.

Smart motorways were an “unsafe” idea, delivered with “hubris and denial even after the human cost became evident”, said Oliver Duff in The i Paper. In the five years to 2020, at least 38 people were killed on these “death traps”.

And then there are all the non-fatal accidents, and near misses: any driver who has experienced a tyre blow out at 70mph will shudder to imagine how terrifying that would be on a road where the hard shoulder has become the “default lane for HGVs”. Campaigners are now calling for all existing smart motorways to be scrapped too.

‘Blood on their hands’

The policy dates back to 2006, when Tony Blair’s government was warned that congestion was costing the country £20bn a year, said Tony Diver in The Daily Telegraph – but that widening motorways would cost even more. Smart roads, which could be created for about a tenth of the cost per mile of installing new lanes, seemed a solution. Although they were warned about the risks, later governments pressed ahead – and even eroded the number of pull-in spots, to cut costs further, so that on the newest motorways, these only come every 2.5km.

For years, I have been asking ministers a simple question, said Edmund King, president of the AA, in the same paper. Would they rather break down on a road with a chance of reaching a hard shoulder – or on one where they’d have to pray that they’d be spotted in a live lane; pray that the control centre activates a warning; pray that a Red X comes up; and pray that other drivers heed it?

The terrible irony is that smart motorways don’t even cut congestion, partly because a third of drivers avoid using the inside lane for fear of ploughing into a stationary car. That this policy ever went ahead is a scandal; those involved have “blood on their hands”.