Smart motorways are an accident waiting to happen, caller tells LBC
4 May 2021, 19:16 | Updated: 4 May 2021, 19:22
Smart motorways are an accident waiting to happen, caller tells LBC
Smart motorways are "an accident waiting to happen", a caller has told LBC.
Colin in Exeter made the remark to LBC's Eddie Mair after the Department for Transport submitted evidence to the Commons transport committee showing that live lane fatality rates on all lane running (ALR) ‘smart motorways’ exceeded those on conventional motorways in 2018 and 2019.
Late last month, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said no new smart motorways without a hard shoulder will open in England unless extra safety measures are in place.
Colin, who runs a same-day courier company, told Eddie he drives "up and down the motorway quite a lot".
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He told Eddie: "A few days ago I was on one of these motorways without the hard shoulder and I was thinking...this is an accident waiting to happen.
"If I broke down immediately or something ceased in the car [then] somebody would hit me straight up the back [of my car], no doubt about it."
He added: "Now, funnily enough, yesterday, I was on the way back from London on the M3 and I had a tyre blowout.
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"So I immediately went straight over the hard shoulder which was there and I got out the car and made the calls that I was supposed to do.
"I felt so much more secure [at] the fact hard should was there," he explained.
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