Ms Sheena Hague
Director of Road Safety
Safety, Engineering and Standards
Landmark, 1 Temple Quay
Temple Back East
BRISTOL BS1 5DZ
December 19th 2023
Re:- Your Letter to Claire Mercer
Dear Sheena Hague
My name is Mike Rawson and I am a retired Metropolitan Police Traffic (Roads Policing) Sergeant who has campaigned against All Lane Running smart motorways since 2014.
Shortly after the tragic death on a smart motorway in South Yorkshire, in 2019, of Claire’s husband, Jason Mercer, I joined the Smart Motorways Kill campaign.
I would like to take this opportunity to comment upon the issues you raised in your letter to Claire and why the removal of the emergency hard shoulder from motorways was a dangerous and seriously retrograde step.
My views and opinions of ALR smart motorways are based upon many years of experience policing sections of the M1 & M25 before the smart motorway policy was implemented.
During those years I dealt with many accidents / collisions and incidents both as a Constable and then as a Sergeant.
For many years professional, experienced Roads Policing Officers, Members of Parliament, Motoring Organisations, National Highways own employees, and a very high percentage of the public have continually condemned the ALR smart motorway policy as dangerous.
No less than eight HM Coroners have found the absence of a hard shoulder has been a major contributory factor at inquests into ALR smart motorway deaths.
Roads Ministers have continually ignored the evidence and signed off more schemes in which the hard shoulder has been converted into an additional live running lane.
Frankly, this is nothing less than arrogant and there are many families suffering the dreadful loss of loved ones directly attributable to the policy.
The Prime Minister, when announcing the cancellation of all ALR schemes, said that drivers have no confidence in them he recognised the two concerns which will never be addressed satisfactorily until ALL motorways have their hard shoulders re-instated.
These concerns relate to problems with their vehicle and their inability to reach an Emergency Refuge Area, leaving them stranded in a live lane used by fast moving traffic.
Their second concern is when travelling at the legal limit of 100’ per second (30m) they will find an obstruction in their lane and that a serious collision may cost lives.
There is, and always will be, a delay between a vehicle stopping in a live lane and the activation of the RED X (as we know many drivers ignore the RED X so the danger is never absent).
The situation for disabled drivers, who have difficulty exiting their vehicle, must be terrifying and it is little wonder such people avoid smart motorways.
National Highways continually claim motorways are the safest roads on the Strategic Road Network and the company takes credit for this.
The reality, as far as credit is concerned, is very different and we need to look at the middle of the twentieth century for an explanation as to why motorways are the safest roads.
In the 1950s there was a massive growth in car ownership and the ‘A’ Roads, passing through towns and villages, were incapable of absorbing such high volumes of traffic.
The government embarked upon a massive road construction program and the era of the motorway was born.
These new roads were unique in that they had no crossroads, no ‘T’ junctions, no traffic signals, no roundabouts, and pedestrians, cyclists and small engine motorcycles were banned as were slow moving farm vehicles.
Safety was much improved by centre reservation crash barriers which prevented many crossover accidents.
Many of the Accident Causation Factors to be found on the ‘A’ Roads were not present on the motorways which greatly contributed to safety.
However, the planners realised the greatest danger to traffic would be a stationary vehicle in a live lane used by high speed traffic.
It was for that reason the motorways for the next fifty years would all be constructed with emergency hard shoulders.
Of course, hard shoulders have other important benefits not least for unimpeded access by the emergency services to serious accidents to provide urgent medical assistance to the injured and, in the most serious cases, to release those trapped in wrecked vehicles.
Those with experience of motorway collisions know only too well the importance of prompt attendance of First Responders if lives are to be saved.
Hard shoulders have always provided police with an opportunity to reposition damaged vehicles from the carriageway enabling the reopening of the motorway to reduce congestion, delay and pollution from queuing / stationary traffic.
In your correspondence you tell Claire National Highways is spending £900m on safety improvements which include an additional 150 ERAs, maintain the ten minute attendance target of Traffic Officers and improving advice to those who use ALR smart motorways.
The additional 150 ERAs will not help those who cannot reach one, but must remain stationary in a live lane, the ten minute wait for Traffic Officers to ‘fend off’ must seem like a lifetime and all the advice in the world doesn’t really help those who find themselves in a real time life threatening situation.
Knowing what to do and actually doing it in an emergency situation are worlds apart!
You also mention the £150m investment to improve the resilience of your technology but National Highways refuses to accept that no technology, however advanced, will be capable of informing drivers the very moment a vehicle becomes stationary in a live lane.
National Highways fails to understand the situation which exists on motorways during the night when volumes are light and drivers are often lulled into a false sense of security.
A stationary vehicle in a lane often appears to drivers to be moving and, as we know, this has resulted in fatalities.
I notice that National Highways never publishes the data relating to traffic disruptions as a result of live lane break downs on smart motorways.
Of course, such data would not support the abolition of the hard shoulder but many journeys are delayed every day.
Justification for ALR was improved journey times – the statistics would seriously question the claim!
Towards the end of your letter you write, ‘While we carry out this work you can be assured that safety on all our roads, including smart motorways, remains our number one priority.
I would respectfully point out that the roads are owned by the people of this country and that National Highways, a taxpayer funded company, is entrusted to construct and maintain the strategic Road Network.
For National Highways to continue to support the smart motorway policy, which seriously compromises the safety of the very people who pay the salaries, expenses and pensions of all employees is not only disgraceful but despicable.
Finally, Ministers and National Highways must understand the smart motorways kill campaign will not rest until hard shoulders are re-instated on all of Britain’s motorways.
Elected politicians and civil servants have a duty to provide the safest possible motorway environment – a duty they have patently failed to do for many years.
Thank you for your time and I wish you the compliments of the season.
Yours sincerely
Mike Rawson
PDF version here
One thing that has not been mentioned is that the lane is used by heavy goods vehicles, accidents involving an ‘Artic’ usually results in heavy injuries and worse if they involve cars, drivers of HGVs do get tired and been shown be often distracted from the monotony of driving motorways.
5
3