More emergency lay-bys on smart motorways? Now that really would be smart

Edmund King is president of the AA and a visiting professor of transport at Newcastle University.

Edmund King is president of the AA and a visiting professor of transport at Newcastle University.

Two words define a good UK motorway: speed and safety. Speed in that it gets you from A to B faster, and safety because per mile driven motorways are our safest roads. It should be a contradiction but isn’t, arguably because of the separation afforded by the hard shoulder and the central reservation, as well as the lack of pedestrians.

Ever since the 1970s when I cruised up the country to Newcastle University in a Citroen Dyane with Tom Robinson’s 2-4-6-8 Motorway blasting away, motorways with hard shoulders gave reassurance. Now the hard shoulder is under threat. In so-called ‘smart’ motorways it’s in use permanently on all-lane running sections or temporarily with dynamic hard shoulders. 

Having spent much of my professional life associated with roads, I confess I do like motorways. However, recent AA research has found that a proportion of drivers are worried about driving on them. Indeed, using data from the AA Route Planner, we found that drivers drove an extra 600 million miles per year just to avoid them. 

Most people were never taught to drive on motorways, so worry about how to join faster-moving traffic or overtake lorries. That is why we support the proposals to allow learners onto motorways with an instructor in a dual-control car. The lack of motorway lessons also probably explains why we have so many middle-lane hogs and tailgaters.

The AA Trust has produced ‘Drive Motorway’ courses to eliminate fears and phobias and to update drivers on changes to the layout and rules. They advise drivers about breakdowns on smart motorways. 

Our biggest issue with the smart motorway concept is the lack of emergency refuge areas (ERAs) on stretches where the hard shoulder has been removed. 

The M42 smart motorway pilot was deemed a great success but, rather than build on that, we have moved the goalposts. The M42 has lay-bys every 600 to 800 metres but the current rules state you only need lay-bys (or exits or service areas) every 2.5km (about 1.5 miles). 

We would like to see twice as many ERAs. The hard shoulder can be dangerous but not as dangerous as a live lane. Of course drivers have a responsibility not to run out of petrol and to keep their cars up to scratch but unpreventable breakdowns happen. If you do get stuck in a live lane, the official advice is to dial 999.

I have listened to harrowing calls from AA members broken down in live traffic lanes. I have heard the fear in their voices and in one case the subsequent CRASH… and then silence.

The ERAs should also be longer as often foreign trucks parked up in the middle mean it is unsafe for any other vehicle to enter the lay-by.

Walt Disney is said to have worked out the ideal spacing of litter bins at Disneyland. He reckoned that if people could see a litter bin then most would use it. If they couldn’t see a bin the proportion of bin users dropped dramatically. “Disneyland Theory” says that it takes the average park-goer about 30 steps before they toss trash on the ground (hence the park’s trash cans every 30 paces).

It is the same on motorways. If the driver, even with a blow-out or engine smoke, can see a lay-by, they are much more likely to make it to that relatively safe haven. If they can’t see one, they will stop in a live lane, which puts lives at risk and causes congestion.

Our aspiration should be for the safest roads in the world. We should embrace vision zero. Smart motorways are a quick way of increasing much-needed capacity on the cheap. Officials and ministers claim that our concerns should be evidence-based and point to sections of smart motorway on the M25 where collisions have reduced. This is missing the point.

If we want the safest roads how can we argue that breaking down in a live lane of traffic is safer than being able to pull onto a hard shoulder or lay-by? Eighty per cent of drivers in an AA Populus poll claim this has made the motorways less safe. I am with them no matter what the official figures say.

It will only take one catastrophic crash to give us an evidence base and frankly I don’t want that. Supporters should consider whether they would want their children to break down in a live lane. I certainly wouldn’t, no matter how many red Xs are flashing or whatever lane detection radars are fitted.

I have listened to harrowing calls from AA members broken down in live traffic lanes. I have heard the fear in their voices and in one case the subsequent CRASH... and then silence.

There is good work going on to provide better signage, countdown markers, information campaigns, and enforcement. This is welcome. But even with all of that, we still need more frequent places to stop.

The other element overlooked in the clamour to rip up hard shoulders is that a car blocking a live lane causes considerable congestion. Cars broken down on a hard shoulder or in an ERA may result in unnecessary ‘rubber-necking’ but they don’t cause miles of congestion.

In a recent House of Commons transport select committee hearing, the emergency services worried about the extra time it takes them to reach a serious crash on sections of motorway with all-lane running. Any extension of the ‘golden hour’ after a serious injury can have fatal consequences. This is the time within which medical intervention by a specialist trauma team has the greatest chance of saving lives. If more than 60 minutes has elapsed by the time the patient reaches the operating table, the chances of survival fall sharply.

So come on ministers and planners, show some common sense: get smart and give us more lay-bys.

I want to continue having happy memories playing 

2-4-6-8 Motorway, rather than switching to Chris Rea’s Road to hell.

Thank you. @AApresident