Smart Motorways: Hundreds of Tech Outages Pose Safety Risks for Drivers

The BBC reported that England's smart motorway network, which uses technology to regulate traffic flow and has permanently removed the hard shoulder on some stretches, experiences frequent failures of crucial safety equipment.

Hundreds of incidents have been documented where this equipment was out of order.

A traffic officer working on the network expressed safety concerns.

National Highways, which maintains major roads in England, insists that smart motorways are the safest roads.

Smart motorways have removed the hard shoulder on 109 miles of the network, with concerns over safety for drivers who breakdown.

Radar and cameras are meant to detect broken-down vehicles and close lanes, but cars can be left stranded in traffic, and emergency services may have difficulty reaching incidents.

The government halted the roll-out of new smart motorways due to cost and safety concerns, and is investing £900m in technology to enhance safety, but there are no plans to reinstate the hard shoulder.

Between June 2022 and February 2024, there were 392 power outages affecting motorway technology, including signs, signals, cameras, and radar.

Some of these outages lasted for several days.

For instance, there were no signs, signals, cameras, or radar at junction 18 on the M6 for five days in July 2023.

Similarly, there were no signs, signals, or CCTV at junction 22 of the M62 for five days in September 2023.