Statement of release of POPE Report
“This has been a catastrophic waste of time, money and effort” says AA president”
The anger shown in today’s statement by The AA and Edmund King says a lot, SMK don’t need to repeat what has already been said (but we will copy and paste extracts below for context!)
But speaking personally as Claire, not SMK for once, I would like to add to said statement.
Over the past six and a half years, I have repeatedly asked both National Highways and the Department for Transport why such dangerous changes were implemented on the stretch of road where my husband was killed. Each time, I was told that these modifications were made to improve journey times and bring economic benefits to the area.
I never felt this was a fair trade anyway and now the report, which has apparently been hidden in a cupboard for 3 years, into that stretch of smart motorway states “The evaluation indicates that there are generally small changes in journey times” [direct quote from page 7]
and
“If the journey time and traffic growth trends observed within the first five years continue, the […] project is expected to deliver ‘medium’ value for money” [direct quote from page 8]
Jason, Alexandru, Derek, David, Nargis and others died, directly due to lack of a hard shoulder, on that stretch for:
- no improvements to journey times
- hundreds of millions of taxpayers money spent on something they said loudly they didn’t want
- and now a poor economic return on that unwanted spend
815 pages of data, some of which is 9 years old, all released quietly in one day. DfT really is doing its now infamous ‘good day to bury bad news’ trick again.
Highlights from AA Statement
“Smart motorways losing the economy money, creating jams with mixed safety benefit”
“Safety record on some schemes worse, most mixed”
“In many cases, converting the hard shoulder into a permanent or temporary running lane has reduced the speed of traffic, meaning more jams and congestion across England’s motorway network”
“The only scheme to exceed expectations is the Controlled Motorway [has a hard shoulder] on the M25 between junctions 16 to 23 which was also widened. This section saw faster journey times and an improved safety record, highlighting The AA’s calls for this to be the standard bearer for motorway improvements”
“Some reports use fatality weighted injuries, some personal injury collisions and others KSIs either as a standalone figure or per hundred million vehicle miles. The AA is concerned at the inconsistent nature of the figures as it makes it difficult to draw conclusions from the data.”
PDF version here
You can smell a rat. Get fid of them.they are deadly.
Yes, put an end to these Death Roads!!!
Perhaps if 1 of theirs was Killed. because of these they would do something?
Surely to God anyone that drives on Motorways MUST understand the absolute necessity of a Safety Hard Shoulder. They MUST also understand that in the event of an emergency that requires an Ambulance, it will NOT be able to reach them quickly and safely with ALL lanes solid with traffic.
What do the Emergency Services have to say about these Death Traps – There must be someone with the courage to stand up to the fools promoting this gross stupidity.