Whistleblower reveals stopped vehicle detection technology crashed, leaving car a ‘sitting duck’ on former hard shoulder on M6
A whistleblower has told how National Highways’ systems “crashed”, which disabled radar technology that detects stranded vehicles, leaving control room staff unable to close lanes to traffic, set speed limits and electronic signs or use CCTV cameras.
The “catastrophic failure” culminated in a pile-up on the southbound M6 on Jan 19 when a car was left a “sitting duck” after breaking down on the inside lane, which used to be a hard shoulder.
The vehicle failed to reach an emergency refuge area on the “all lane running” stretch of the motorway before being hit repeatedly by other vehicles between junctions 3a and 3 near Coventry.
The National Highways whistleblower, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “We had no stopped vehicle detection systems, no CCTV and no control of signals and signs.
“The fact no one was killed is pure luck.
“Thankfully, God was watching over them, because we certainly weren’t.”
Outage lasted three hours
A National Highways spokesman said the “unplanned outage” lasted three hours, with the six-car collision resulting in only “minor injuries”.
This latest system failure and subsequent multiple collisions would not have come to light without the whistleblower risked contacting The Telegraph.
Article on Telegraph website here (Paywall?)
PDF version here