The BBC’s Panorama programme found that there have been twenty times more near-misses on the M25 since the introduction of so-called ‘smart motorways’. This is where the hard shoulder is used as a driving lane. 38 people have been killed on these motorways in 5 years. Smart motorways must be urgently scrapped before any more people lose their lives.
I’m a lorry driver and I drive up and down these motorways every day. I’ve seen cars stranded on these roads and it is incredibly dangerous for them to be a sitting duck next to traffic travelling at 70mph and more. It can be deadly.
It can take up to 17 minutes for highways authorities to notice you have broken down in a lane of live traffic and to display a Red Cross above the lane to indicate to other road users not to use that lane, during that time cars and trucks are still approaching you from behind at some speed! If a car or worse a truck was to hit you at this point, it would have catastrophic results.
My wife drives a 3 door car, and we have 2 small children. So if she was to break down on a smart motorway, she is expected to come to a stop in a live lane, get out of the vehicle, get one child out of the back (which means having the door wide open whilst leaning into the back of the car), run to the barrier and leave one child unattended at the barrier whilst she then returns to the vehicle to get the second child. All whilst hoping not to be hit from behind.
All this could be avoided if there was simply an emergency lane - hard shoulder. It’s just safer!
Please sign this in support of bringing back hard shoulders. Must we really compromise our safety just to try get somewhere a little faster? Removing hard shoulders to try ease congestion is not safe. Put them back please to prevent more accidents!
https://www.change.org/p/scrap-dangerous-smart-motorways/exp/cl_/cl_sharecopy_13546258_en-GB/v1/986953402?utm_content=cl_sharecopy_13546258_en-GB%3Av1&recruiter=986953402&recruited_by_id=bd437f60-af07-11e9-b791-dbc070641213&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&utm_term=a2e308450ee84d5f894103d5132118e6