Smart motorway hard shoulders must be reinstated, demands RAC as it slams hated roads 1yr after PM axed future projects

MINISTERS are being urged to reinstate hard shoulders on smart motorways.

The issued the plea exactly a year after PM Rishi Sunak halted any more of the road types being introduced.

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He cited financial pressures and low public confidence in them.

The all-lane running motorways, which turn the hard shoulder into a traffic lane, increased capacity at a lower cost than widening roads.

But there have been long-standing safety concerns after fatal incidents in which vehicles stopped in them were hit from behind.

RAC head of policy Simon Williams said: “We continue to believe the Government should either convert existing all-lane running smart motorways to dynamic ones — where the hard shoulder is only opened to traffic during busy periods — or repaint the white line and reintroduce a permanent hard shoulder on these roads.”

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“In either case, queue-busting technology such as variable speed limits could remain to help ensure that traffic flows as smoothly as possible.”

The Department for Transport said it was investing £900million “to make improvements on existing smart motorways, including building more emergency areas on these roads”.

A National Highways report published in December revealed that smart motorways without a hard shoulder were three times more dangerous to break down on than those with an emergency lane.

The number of people killed or seriously injured after a stopped vehicle was hit by a moving vehicle was 0.21 per 100 million vehicle miles travelled on ALR smart motorways between 2017 and 2021.

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That compares with 0.07 on controlled smart motorways, which have variable speed limits but retain a hard shoulder, and 0.10 on conventional motorways.

National Highways said at the time that evidence shows all types of smart motorways are safer than conventional motorways in terms of deaths or serious injuries, and a series of safety improvements have been made since 2021.

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