Why smart motorways are unnecessary danger – Yorkshire Post Letters

THIS week the Sheffield coroner was the latest significant person to criticise so-called “smart” motorways which, because of their lack of hard shoulder, do not properly protect travellers who have had to stop for a breakdown or minor accident.

The inquest had concerned two people killed after stopping on a live lane of the M1 near Sheffield. When “all-lane running” was introduced in the Midlands in 2006, the roads appeared to have plenty of safety features, but economies became more important as the scheme was developed across the country.

By the time the hard shoulder was removed from the Yorkshire sections of the M1, creating the fourth live lane, the safety features were sadly inadequate.

The M62, meanwhile, is quite unfathomable to the driver trying to negotiate its “smart” sections. A year ago, when the high number of fatalities was revealed as some 40 in five years, the Department for Transport promised a number of largely cosmetic improvements, but I don’t see any evidence of them being put into action.

I hope The Yorkshire Post and its motorway-using readers will continue to follow this issue until the Government takes genuine steps to ensure that our motorways are all safe again.

From: Philip Wilks, Lumley Street, Castleford.

IT has been reported that a radar system, which can spot stationary vehicles within 20 seconds, has been installed in approximately one third of the motorways around the London area. Lancashire and Yorkshire, have more miles of motorway than the London area, and yet have not a single mile of this lifesaving technology.

This is yet another example of the gross disparity in transport funding between the North and the South.

It has taken a tragic accident in Yorkshire to highlight the unsafeness of the present smart motorways, and attract condemnation from a northern coroner.

Let us hope that this will result in Yorkshire getting its fair share of transport funding, and make our northern motorways safer.

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