Smart technology is everywhere. It’s in our televisions, our toothbrushes, and on our roads. But while—outside of a Stephen King story—the first two probably won’t kill you, if something goes wrong with the latter, the results will likely be catastrophic.
Last week, Sheffield’s city coroner, investigating an accident on the M1 in 2019, concluded that smart motorways carry “an ongoing risk of future deaths.” His verdict was followed by an intervention from South Yorkshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner, who labelled the roads “inherently dangerous.”
Suddenly, smart motorways, designed as much to reduce the discussion of traffic as traffic itself, were being defamed from Scotch Corner to Pease Pottage. A recent YouGov poll revealed two-thirds of drivers thought them less safe than normal motorways, with 57 per cent opposed to their use entirely. At the same time, a Change.org petition calling for their removal surged towards its half a million-signature target.
Those tragic deaths notwithstanding, all this comes despite the fact nearly all statistics point to them being as safe if not safer than normal ones: between 2015-2018, the fatal casualty rate for smart motorways without a permanent hard shoulder was lower than on motorways with one.
And there is clear evidence they have cut journey times, raised the capacity of Britain’s busiest roads, and saved money on otherwise expensive widening schemes. So, why are they so hated?
The science behind the scheme
Smart technology is intended to gift objects cognitive awareness through artificial intelligence and data-collecting ability. The term was first used for motorways in 2013 by the Highways Agency (now Highways England) to promote new technology to road users, even though smart is an annoying enough word when used to describe fellow humans.
Now constituting around 400 miles of English asphalt (in Scotland they’re called Intelligent Transport Systems), smart motorways are monitored by sensors which record traffic flow, feeding the data back to regional control centres and GPS apps from where operators can close lanes or reduce speed limits, communicating this information to drivers using signals mounted on gantries. This whole process is acronymised, perhaps fatefully, as MIDAS (Motorway Incident Detection and Automatic Signalling).
Since accidents can, theoretically, be quickly identified, a “dynamic” hard shoulder is used for emergencies or as an extra live lane to reduce congestion. An empty fourth lane was once mandatory on British motorways but as breakdowns and collisions declined—due to stricter rules and better cars—and congestion increased, utilising these seemingly superfluous stretches of no man’s land was identified as a quick, cheap and green way of improving the network.
In their stead, smart motorways have refuge areas—lay-bys placed at regular intervals for emergency use. For the most part, the removal of a permanent hard shoulder has decreased fatal casualty rates, while technology allowing reactive speed limit changes has meant less speeding, tailgating and a more consistent traffic flow.
A tool of control?
However, a BBC Panorama documentary found that, between 2014-2019, 38 people died on smart motorways. While their number may not be statistically exceptional, the idea of putting one’s faith in technology only for it to fail is particularly awful.
In the 1990s, the Dutch engineer Hans Moderman developed the concept of “naked streets” based on the belief that road users are more diligent when “self-policing” rather than reading signs. His ideas have been adopted in hundreds of towns across Europe, but not so much over here.
Smart motorways are found in other countries but nowhere else has such ambitious expansion plans. Then again, England, with its population concentrated in dense interconnected conurbations, does have exceptionally busy motorways. As transport expert Christian Wolmar told me: “It’s a reasonable compromise between safety and cost—it’s not possible to have 100 per cent safety and any money saved can be used to spend on improving the technology.” When looked at in context, Britain’s roads are actually remarkably safe. Only a handful of other countries, including Norway, Switzerland, Japan and Kiribati, have fewer annual road deaths per million people. Road safety campaigns have been successful due to a focus on personal responsibility. Might smart motorways provoke such anger because of their desire to manipulate and control our movement?
Or is this antipathy more deep-seated? Compared to other Western countries, Britain was a fairly late adopter of motorways (its first full-length one, the M1, was opened in December 1959) and the network, with its whimsically named retail complexes serving drivers en route from Metro Land to the shires, sometimes seems set in aspic. UK motorists, a body likely to be fairly conservative (the YouGov poll found that 79 per cent of over-65s were against smart motorways) could be resistant on the principle of unwanted change.
Future plans
Every avoidable death is a tragedy, and the recent public outcry has forced the government to publish an 18-point plan to tackle safety issues around smart motorways. These include abolishing “dynamic” hard shoulders (in favour of four active lanes), speeding up detection technology and building more emergency refuge areas.
They have also committed an extra £5m to raising awareness among road users—great news considering a survey by road safety charity Brake found that less than half of UK motorists knew the rules for using smart motorways. What they have not done is decided to reverse the scheme, whose continued implementation now appears inexorable.
Driving on motorways is still much safer than on normal roads (in 2018 they carried 21 per cent of traffic but had only 6 per cent of fatal collisions) and the increasing use of computation both inside and outside of vehicles is a fait accompli. It does not seem unreasonable, therefore, to dream of a future in which there are zero avoidable deaths. Until that time comes, keep your eyes on the smart road ahead.
