{"id":6635,"date":"2023-01-30T11:39:29","date_gmt":"2023-01-30T11:39:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scrapcarnetwork.org\/news\/?p=6635"},"modified":"2025-02-26T23:32:11","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T23:32:11","slug":"smart-motorway-technology-not-currently-fit-for-purpose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scrapcarnetwork.org\/news\/smart-motorway-technology-not-currently-fit-for-purpose\/","title":{"rendered":"Smart motorway technology not currently fit for purpose"},"content":{"rendered":"

Smart motorways have been around for a long while now \u2013 longer than most people realise, in fact. The first one was actually opened all the way back in 2006, which means that if you\u2019ve been driving for more than a few years, there\u2019s a very good chance you\u2019ve driven on one already. We\u2019ve even talked about them<\/a><\/strong> in detail before here at Scrap Car Network.<\/p>\n

But while the general tone of our previous article is quite optimistic, things have changed quite a lot in the past four to five years. Smart motorways have always been surrounded by some level of controversy, mostly to do with safety concerns \u2013 especially in the case of All Lane Running smart motorways, which remove the hard shoulder to replace it with a live lane of traffic instead.<\/p>\n

These safety concerns have become especially prevalent in recent years, with more people than ever worried about having a crash that could leave them thinking \u2013 I need to scrap my car<\/a><\/strong>. (Or worse!) Eventually, the government was forced to pause the rollout of smart motorways in January of 2022. That was twelve months ago. So where are we now?<\/p>\n

Why did the government pause the rollout of smart motorways?<\/h2>\n

In a nutshell, the government has halted all new development on smart motorways because of safety concerns. The blunt way of saying it is that people have been getting killed and injured more frequently on smart motorways, and in several high-profile cases<\/a><\/strong>, coroners have found smart motorways to have been a significant factor in the deaths of the people concerned.<\/p>\n

One estimate says that live fatality rates were more than a third higher<\/strong><\/a> on ALR motorways than they were on conventional motorways in 2018. Another more recent study from Fleet News found that about half of drivers surveyed<\/a><\/strong> said they avoided All Lane Running Motorways , which undermined the central aim of reducing congestion.<\/p>\n

Compounding that is the issue of false detection rates. In the words of the RAC head of roads policy, Nicholas Lyes: \u201cBreaking down in a live lane is terrifying enough, but drivers must have confidence that the infrastructure is detecting them quickly so authorities can immediately close the lane.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, false detection rates (basically, the system crying wolf<\/a><\/strong>) are several times over the maximum margin allowed. They\u2019re supposed to be no more than 15% of the total number of detections, whereas actually they can constitute anywhere between 63% to a staggering 83%. It\u2019s not the sign of a reliable system \u2013 especially when lives are at stake.<\/p>\n

All that put the government under a significant amount of pressure, eventually forcing the scheme to come to a halt in 2022. The pause will continue until 2025, which should give the government enough time to work out what the next step should be.<\/p>\n

What happens now?<\/h2>\n

The biggest obstacle for the government is that it can\u2019t just hit \u201cundo\u201d on a project that\u2019s been years and millions of pounds in the making. As the previous Minister for Transport, Grant Shapps, explained to Parliament last year: \u201cit would require the equivalent of 700 Wembley stadium-sized football pitches to somehow undo all this. We\u2019d have to buy people\u2019s homes, to destroy acres of green belt. I don\u2019t see there\u2019s a route through simply undoing. We\u2019ve got to make what is there safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the meantime, drivers remain unconvinced. The RAC says that according to its own research, 70% of motorists want to see All Lane Running motorways scrapped entirely. Instead, they want to see smart motorways reverted to their \u2018dynamic hard shoulder\u2019 variant, in which the hard shoulder is opened and closed for use by traffic according to the amount of congestion \u2013 rather than simply being permanently removed.<\/p>\n

Labour have also called for All Lane Running motorways to be abolished. Even Mike Penning, the Conservative peer who originally oversaw their initial rollout, now says he was \u2018misled\u2019, and that they should \u2018never have happened\u2019.<\/p>\n

As for exactly what the government will do\u2026 well, we don\u2019t know any firm courses of action just yet. But it\u2019s very likely that ministers will be working on some solutions already in the pipeline \u2013 and if they\u2019re not, the public will want them to come up with something, quickly.<\/p>\n

Despite all the uncertainty surrounding that though, you can always be sure of one constant \u2013 and that\u2019s that you can always get the very best prices when you scrap your car<\/a><\/strong> with us. Don\u2019t just take our word for it \u2013 get an instant online quote today! It\u2019s free, and there\u2019s zero obligation until you decide you\u2019re ready to proceed. Just enter your car reg and postcode<\/a><\/strong> into the fields on our site, and within seconds you\u2019ll be looking at your very own instant online quote. Ready to find out how much your car is worth?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Smart motorways have been around for a long while now \u2013 longer than most people realise, in fact. The first one was actually opened all the way back in 2006, which means that if you\u2019ve been driving for more than a few years, there\u2019s a very good chance you\u2019ve driven on one already. We\u2019ve even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":6641,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n