Smart motorways in their current format were signed off by then Tory transport minister Sir Mike Penning at the beginning of last decade.
However, he has always maintained he was misled about the risks of turning the hard shoulder into a live lane of traffic.
He also claims they don't resemble the designs he signed off and that Highways England has 'casually ignored the commitments' made to MPs on safety.
And have any civil servants been sacked? Dragged before PAC? Mildly admonished?
A Department for Transport spokesman (said): 'As soon as the Transport Secretary took office he recognised the concerns around smart motorway safety and commissioned an urgent stocktake of the evidence, which we published a year ago - along with a £500 million, 18-point, action plan to make them safer still.'
Oh. No, of course not. We're just going to be forking over more cash to try to put it right.
Highways England is facing possible manslaughter charges over the death of Nargis Begum, 62, who died on the M1 smart motorway in Yorkshire in 2018.
Bet that comes to nothing too.
It's unbelievable that this abomination of an idea wasn't consigned to the bin as soon as it was first proposed - and Penning claiming he was "misled" is no excuse. And as for the admission that there is no proper system to monitor the operational status of every camera just further adds to the staggering incompetence of everyone involved.
ReplyDeleteIt's a measure of how debased the government has become that they pressed ahead with it and are now saying 'Oooh, I didn't know!'..
DeleteI stopped on an M25 'smart' section, to check the tyres due to vibration. Lorries were hurtling past so fast & close that I could not check the offside tyres.
ReplyDeleteThis stupid and dangerous idea, introduced solely to save money, is appalling.
Ed P - If the car will move crawl down the nearside lane to a refuge, don't even think of stopping unless the car won't move at all.
DeleteAdding to Woodsy42, make sure the hazard warning lights are on.
DeleteYes, I stopped in the 'refuge'! That's unsafe (as I said above): it would be safer to stop on the inside lane and hold up the traffic.
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