Drivers aren t always responding to lane closures
Smart motorways rely too much on individual drivers’ observation and response
Lucy England
I said the lane is closed!
The RAC has pointed out that many drivers are either ignoring, or just not seeing the signs indicating that there are lane closures ahead on smart motorways.
Since 2021 there have been more than 53,000 incidents of drivers not responding to smart motorway lane closure signs and continuing to use a closed lane. The problem with this is obvious, it means that any motorcyclist or driver who has broken down in a smart motorway lane is not protected, as the lane in which they are stranded still has traffic flowing through it.
Basically a motorcyclist or motorist who breaks down on a smart motorway is completely dependent on the observation skills and probity of the other road users out there. If drivers or riders don’t see the closed lane signs, or choose to ignore them, moving traffic could very easily hit stationary vehicles which have broken down.
On all lane running motorways where there is no hard shoulder any more, roadside signs are the main means of communication, rather than overhead gantries which span the carriageway, and they can be harder to see for road users which may be part of the problem.
Lane closure is in fact only one way to keep motorists safe on smart motorways and it relies entirely on motorists spotting the signs and obeying them. It doesn’t seem like a foolproof system and is wide open to a lot of human error. The RAC is asking the Government to convert all lane running stretches of smart motorway to controlled motorways by bringing the hard shoulders back, or at the very least going over to a dynamic hard shoulder system where the hard shoulder is in place for breakdowns for most of the day and night, and only opened for running when the road is at its busiest. That way there would be a hard shoulder for emergencies most of the time.
Could it just be a matter of time before all lane running motorways are consigned to history now?
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