Patrick Christys: Smart motorways are just very expensive death traps

We need to scrap smart motorways – they are playing roulette with drivers’ lives.

There simply isn’t enough data on how safe they are, and it’s not good enough to retrospectively fit safety features after people have died.

That’s somebody’s mum, dad, son, daughter…they won’t take any comfort from the notion that if their relatives had been driving on the smart motorway a year later they could have survived by pulling into a lay by.

Smart motorways currently account for around 400m of English highways, so that’s 400m of English highway with no hard shoulder.

Reports on the number of deaths on smart motorways a little bit mixed, but The Guardian reported there was one death for every 17 miles in 2019, The Mail reports that there have been 53 deaths between 2015 and 2019.

What we do know is that 1 in 10 cameras designed to monitor traffic flow aren’t working. In fact, sometimes they get foggy and they have to be pointed at the sun to de-mist.

So good luck to anyone who breaks down near a foggy camera. An undercover investigation found that camera operators, from the safety of their office, were saying that drivers should just start praying.

That’s not really what I want – the idea that I have to beg my higher power for safety on a motorway, I already ask enough from him on a daily basis as it is.

Just thinking about this logically, how on earth can it be rational that smart motorways are safer, let alone when the technology they need to function doesn’t work. Just the actual idea of a smart motorway itself.

The hard shoulder was a place of relative safety, you could pull in there if you took ill or if your car broke down. But now, if you blow tyre, you’re asked to just stop in traffic. And, all too often, there’s construction work and barriers going on along the side of the road.

So even if you wanted to take your chances by veering into the grass verge, you’d have to play ten pin bowling with a load of motorway maintenance workers before you hit the trees.

And then there’s the other madness of the whole thing – how many times have you been on a smart motorway with no traffic in sight, you could fire a volley of cannons on the M6 and not hit a thing, and you’re still restricted to 50mph.

I think they’re just glorified speed traps designed to raise money for the powers that be. And how long does it take to actually construct these things? I used this example before but I’ll use it again, how often are you on a smart motorway and there’s a sign at the side of the road saying ‘Please drive slowly, my daddy works here…’ and a picture of a man in a hard hat.

I’m very sorry sunshine, your daddy doesn’t work here. He is supposed to be, but he hasn’t been seen here for years. And I’ve had chance to have a good look for him because this stretch of road has been a car park for as long as I can remember.

I think smart motorways are just very expensive death traps – the brainchild of people without a brain, that poses more of a threat to public safety than just simply not doing it.