• During this interview the National Highways Director of Operations repeatedly tries to avoid answering how often and for how long the gantries on the motorways are switched off or not working.
• Repeatedly says “just like any other IT system” which is why a tangible, physical safety feature like a hard shoulder should never be replaced by an IT system.
• He states “you are less likely to be killed on smart motorways” but doesn’t explain that this is because there is more miles of ‘other’ roads and that the risk used to be even less before they changed motorways.
• He also says they couldn’t pause smart motorways already in construction as leaving a building site in the middle in of the road is dangerous, that is obvious, but the foot print of a smart motorways is the same as a conventional motorway, so why could work not continue and the motorway open as a conventional motorway?
• And as I continually point out “the pause” is all but a lie. National Highways just declared most projects (even those just in design stage) as substantially complete and gave themselves permission to carry on with them. M6 Junction J21 – 26 for example, ground had not been broken before the pause, yet work on this junction and many other, still continued.