New ‘smart motorways’ blasted as police have no hard shoulder to pull dangerous drivers over
Police Federation road policing head Dave Blundell revealed officers had complained they had been forced to wait 'miles and miles' to halt culprits
POLICE blasted new “smart motorways” yesterday because cops have nowhere to pull dangerous drivers over.
The traffic management technology allows the hard shoulder to be used as an extra lane at busy times.
And Police Federation road policing head Dave Blundell revealed officers had complained they had been forced to wait “miles and miles” to halt culprits.
He said: “There’s no hard shoulder, so where do we safely stop another motorist?”
Major concerns had already been raised after a woman passenger, 62, was killed on a smart section with no hard shoulder. The broken down car she was in was hit by another on the M1 near Sheffield last September.
And the federation for rank and file officers also warned traffic cop cuts had turned the nation’s roads into “wacky races”. An average of five people die on them a day and the toll is likely to get worse, it said.
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Chairman John Apter said: “The evidence is dangerous drivers are less and less fearful of being caught because there is nobody out there to catch them and it is only going to get worse.”
He added: “It’s like wacky races out there with some of the stuff we see.”
Chief Constable Anthony Bangham, head of road policing for the National Police Chief’s Council, agreed. He said: “We simply do not have enough roads policing officers.”
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