FAQ/Suggestions
“I thought Smart Motorways have been scrapped”
Unfortunately not, the government recently said that they were scrapping all NEW smart motorways, not the existing ones!
So smart motorways are too dangerous for the government to justify spending anymore of the tax
payers money on now that attention has been bought to the subject, but we still have to keep using the existing ones!
.
“You should sue for corporate manslaughter”
I and many, many, many others completely agree, but after years of pushing this point, we were
eventually directed (by the Police) to the Crown Prosecution Service whom the Police have to look to for guidance before they can spend the tax payers money on prosecuting
anything, especially never before done prosecutions (i.e. the police prosecuting a government
department) The CPS decided (after taking advice from National Highways!!) That National Highways do not owe the public a Duty of Care, and therefore cannot be prosecuted for Corporate Manslaughter/Gross Negligence.
The only time National Highways owes a duty of care is if the road was under construction at the time, if the victim was a prisoner being transported or if the victim worked for NH on the road at the time. So now myself and Mike Rawson have to chase every police force individually, each time we hear about a death were any of those 3 criteria might apply and ensure that force are looking at corporate
manslaughter. We have done this many times and so far not one police force has agreed to take this
action, then we have to FOI their reasoning, then we get branded in writing as having malicious intent!
.
“Contact the Health & Safety Executive”
I tried this from the outset, it took months for the legal position on this to be confirmed, because again its untested, but it was eventually confirmed to me that as the motorway was not Jason & Alexandrus place of work then the HSE could not be involved. Even though Alexandru was a delivery driver and would not have been reasonably able to do his job without using the motorway, it still doesn’t apply.
.
“You should start a petition”
They achieve nothing I’m afraid. It’s just a list of angry people. The only petition that actually promises anything are the parliament ones and all they promise is to get the subject discussed in Parliament, this subject has been discussed in there literally hundreds of times, they never conclude anything they just go onto the next subject they are obliged (not interested in) to discuss.
Petitions aren’t the tool they used to be, and our efforts are best served elsewhere. The legal action we are taking is much more powerful, when it gets moving.
.
“Take private legal action”
I have been in legal action with National Highways over 4 years now and they have succeeded in deflecting, ignoring and slow timing me all this time. I am bringing a judicial review against National Highways to get smart motorways banned by the High Court, but its taking a very, very, very long time. And people are dying while National Highways are playing tactics.
.
“A smart motorway is no different to a dual carriageway/A road”
Motorways are designed, managed, patrolled, and operated completely differently to other roads. They have control centres, gantries, and now separate laws. Dual carriageways/A Roads do not.
Summarised difference between a motorway and other roads
* the speeds, amount of traffic, average length of journey, importantly an escape route
On an ‘A’ roads/Dual Carriageways it’s possible to pull onto the grass verge out of the path of traffic, this is not an option on motorways which have crash barriers, hemming vehicles in.
Dual carriageways/A Roads have more junctions, turn offs, signals, etc, and more drivers doing shorter journeys. So, concentration is much more heightened.
Far less HGV’s and far less traffic in general, overall, on a carriage ways/A road, with average speeds
being lower. All reducing chance of having issues on a dual carriageway.
Also, carriage ways have never had hard shoulders, whereas motorways did and they were removed solely for profit.
.
“How can you blame profits and back handers for these roads”
National Highways is a private, profit making department of the government . It pays incentive bonuses for spend/budget reductions, it also places its own massive billion-pound contracts with private
contractors using the taxpayers money and it can do this without having to use government processes or having to get government authorisation. The private contracting companies bidding for these orders have the option to “support” the relevant political party with ‘donations’
This is not the only self-serving going on in the background though, all the way through the smart
motorways implementation there has been a lot of people just looking after themselves. Whether its quiet retirement, titles, career enhancements, business or networking and funding it all goes to explain how this ridiculous idea got off the drawing board and beat challenge after challenge in the process.
.
Being rude and/or using oh-so-witty line “smart motorways need smart drivers” will get you blocked.
Don’t come onto a page called Smart Motorways Kill and say they don’t, if you don’t agree then stay away and don’t try and bait people going through hell because a smart motorway did kill.
How was my husband not smart for not knowing what a smart motorway was years ago, when nobody did? How was he not smart for not being able to get his car out of a live running lane because of the crash barrier? how was he not smart for NOT climbing over the crash barrier and falling off the 30 foot drop the other side!?
There is unsmart people out there, but it is not just them that get killed, also the penalty for not being smart is not death, it would be a very empty world if it was.
0.5