Road safety campaigners and motoring organisations have urged the UK government to immediately release a series of “withheld” safety assessments of smart motorways, some dating back to 2022. Designed to increase capacity, smart motorways convert the hard shoulder into a live lane of traffic, relying on occasional lay-bys and electronic overhead signs to close lanes in emergencies.
Campaigners believe the reports from National Highways, which is responsible for England’s motorways, have been suppressed because they cast further doubt on the safety and economic benefits of smart motorways. The Department for Transport (DfT) has stated the reports, known as “post-opening project evaluations” (POPEs), will be published imminently and do not undermine the broad case for smart motorways as statistically the safest roads.
However, with a number of deaths in horrific circumstances after breakdowns, motoring organisations have urged the government to restore the hard shoulder, despite a series of works since 2020 to improve safety. The last POPE report released in 2021 examined a converted section of the M1 between junctions 10 and 13, finding that in the first five years, journey times had slowed and the number of accidents causing severe injury had increased, while a forecast economic boost of £1bn turned into a £200m deficit.
Claire Mercer, of the Smart Motorways Kill campaign, said: “The longer it takes, you think either they are that uninterested, or there really is something going on. If [the reports] showed good news, they’d release them.” A response from National Highways suggested officials were anxious to manage how the results were presented, with 14 reports initially planned for release before Christmas last year “subject to the DfT agreeing the communications handling plan”.
Jack Cousens, the head of roads policy at the AA, said: “These safety reports on so-called smart motorways have been withheld for far too long, and we urgently need to see them published.” The AA and drivers they surveyed wanted hard shoulders to be restored, with Cousens stating: “While the hard shoulder is a dangerous place, it is not as dangerous as breaking down in a live lane, being unsure if the technology has spotted you.”
The Conservative government’s “stocktake” in 2020 led to a moratorium on any new smart motorway projects, although work in progress continued to convert stretches of major routes, including the M1. Measures included more vehicle detection technology and stopping areas, with 150 extra refuges added across existing stretches of the M1, M3, M4, M5, M20, M25 and M27, and more signage informing drivers of the distance to the next safe place to stop.
A National Highways spokesperson said: “Safety is our number one priority, and we’re doing everything in our control to make sure our roads are even safer.” However, the continuing delays in releasing the safety assessments suggest the content “must be really, really bad,” according to the author of the Transport Insights blog.
