No more deadly highways as government does U-turn
New smart motorways are to be removed from government road-building plans due to financial pressures and lack of confidence by drivers. Plans for new smart motorways will be cancelled and previously paused schemes will now not go ahead, whereas existing smart motorways will receive £900 million worth of safety improvements. This includes progressing plans on installing 150 extra emergency areas across the network, as well as further improving the performance of stopped vehicle detection technology on every all-lane-running smart motorway.
This has come in response to growing pressure from individuals, MPs and road user groups, who are growing increasingly worried about the death toll on Smart motorways in the UK. Thirty-eight people were killed on Smart motorways between 2015 and 2020 alone, a BBC report revealed. Following the Government’s decision, long-term smart motorways opponent and Transport Select Committee member, Karl McCartney MP, said: ‘I am pleased that the Government has at last come to the common-sense decision to scrap any more plans for the these less-than-smart motorways before any more lives are lost and money is spent. We cannot stop there as we need to urgently review the existing ones.
‘We also need senior figures at National Highways and in the civil service who have been defending and promoting them to be publicly held to account including for badly advising government ministers. They have been the ones pushing for more.’
Starting HANDLE
My BMW 318i SE Mr Blue Sky, as he is known because of his ELO number plate and colour, came to me for free about six years ago. Yes, free, as in ‘please come and take it away,’ as the owner had just been given a heavy fine for not having any road tax. The car was languishing in a London multi-storey with braking issues that were, in fact, nothing more than a broken ABS wire. Ten minutes with a soldering iron and some tape and it was MOT ready and it hasn’t really missed a beat ever since.
Every member of my family has enjoyed using him, including a wonderful motoring holiday in France. As the song says, ‘Mr Blue, you did it right.’ He would have been melted down for tin cans had ULEZ been a thing in 2017. It is a nonsense, in my own humble opinion. For the past few years I’ve been forced to pay £100 per day to use my van for work inside the standard LEZ zone, which in some areas is just inside the M25. I’m not a big company, there’s just me, and I can’t afford to replace it wit
