How smart are smart motorways really?

There are three types of smart motorway. Controlled motorways are like traditional motorways, with a hard shoulder for emergencies, but with variable speed limits and active lane management signs added.

Dynamic hard shoulder running motorways have a hard shoulder that can be opened to traffic to increase capacity at busy times. However, the government says that they confuse motorists and therefore will be converted to all-lane-running (ALR) motorways by April 2025.

This third type of smart motorway has no hard shoulder whatsoever. In emergencies, vehicles must be driven – if possible – to an emergency refuge area, a large bay located to the left of the inside lane. More than 350 miles of motorway have already had their hard shoulders removed, making ALRs the most common type of smart motorway – as well as the most controversial.

How should you drive on a smart motorway?

Driving on a smart motorway should be no different from driving on a traditional motorway, but in reality it is. For example, there are the enforceable variable speed limits to be aware of, while at other times you might see a red X sign above a lane, meaning it’s closed to traffic. On an ALR motorway, this might be because a vehicle has broken down.

The government has made ignoring a red X sign punishable by three penalty points and a £100 fine. Infringements are detected by upgraded versions of the existing Hadecs 3 speed cameras, but Highways England has admitted that only half of them are operational and that it will be July 2023 before the network is fully upgraded.

Meanwhile, the government has asked Highways England to accelerate its roll-out of the stopped vehicle detection system, which spots a stationary vehicle within 20 seconds, after learning that less than 5% of the smart motorway network currently has the technology. It’s intended that all ALR motorways will have the system by 2022, although Highways England has admitted that broken-down vehicles are not always spotted by the technology and that it can be overwhelmed at times of high traffic levels. On these occasions, the agency’s Midas system takes over monitoring of the road.

What are the risks of ALR motorways?

According to government data covering 2015 to 2018, drivers are less likely to be in an accident involving moving vehicles on an ALR motorway but more likely to be in one where one of the vehicles is stationary. They’re less likely to be injured or killed, too. The report said emergency refuge areas are safer than hard shoulders.

However, the RAC says that ALR motorways simply transfer the risk of being hit while moving to being hit when stationary by more than 200%.

In January 2020, it was revealed that 38 people had been killed on smart motorways in the past five years and, on one M25 section, near misses had increased twentyfold.

How far apart are the emergency refuge areas on ALR motorways?

Given that 38% of breakdowns on ALR motorways occur in a live lane, the frequency of emergency refuge areas is key to reducing accidents. For the M42 pilot scheme, the areas were a quarter of a mile apart, but for new schemes from 2012 they were as far as two and a half miles apart. Following the government’s 2020 review of smart motorways, the gap between safety areas will be no more than a mile – but only for new schemes. As for existing schemes, the government says that the M25 will gain 10 new safety areas and lessons learned from this project will inform the roll-out of new areas on other ALR motorways.

Do smart motorways work?

The government says that smart conversion has raised the capacity of the busiest motorways by up to a third, with each carrying 1600 more vehicles per hour in each direction.

Research by the RAC appears to contradict these findings, however. It compared two sections of the M25, one with all-lane running and the other a dynamic hard shoulder; it found the former to be 73% clear while the latter was 98% clear.

On the ALR stretch of M1 where the two men were killed in 2019, the casualty rate had increased, although that’s based on only one year’s data.

If your vehicle goes wrong on a smart motorway

â–  Move into the left-hand lane and turn on your hazard lights.

â–  Exit at the next junction or services; or follow the orange SOS signs to an emergency refuge area, from where you can call for help using the free telephone.

If you can’t get off the motorway or to an emergency area:

â–  Move your vehicle as close as possible to the left-hand verge, boundary or slip road.

â–  If you feel that you can get out safely with any occupants, consider exiting your vehicle via a left-hand door, and wait behind the safety barrier if there is one.

â–  Call 999 immediately.

If your car stops immediately in any lane on an ALR motorway:

â–  Keep your seatbelts and hazard lights on and call 999 immediately.

â–  Highways England will close the lane and send help.

Steps in the government's action plan

In its Smart Motorway Safety Evidence Stocktake and Action Plan, published last year, the government set out 18 steps to improvement, including:

â–  Ending the use of dynamic hard shoulders.

â–  Faster roll-out of stopped vehicle detection.

â–  Faster attendance at incidents by Highways England traffic officers.

â–  New standard for spacing of emergency refuge areas.

â–  Making emergency refuge areas more visible.

â–  More signs displaying the distance to the next refuge area.

â–  Better communication with drivers on what smart motorways are and how to use them.

â–  Updating the Highway Code with driving advice for smart motorways.

What do those involved say?

The camapaigners

Claire Mercer: Claire’s husband, Jason Mercer, was one of the two men killed on an ALR section of the M1 in 2019, after which she founded smartmotorwayskill.co.uk. “I don’t understand why, if you must do a risk assessment of a playgroup, a proper risk assessment wasn’t done of smart motorways,” she told Autocar. “All we want is to have the hard shoulder back.”