Skip to main content

Motorists worried about safety on smart motorways

The UK’s Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) is calling for more information and advice on smart motorways for drivers. The call comes after seventy-one per cent of drivers said they would feel less safe on a motorway with no hard shoulder than a motorway with one, according to the latest poll by the IAM.
May 9, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
The UK’s 6187 Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) is calling for more information and advice on smart motorways for drivers.  The call comes after seventy-one per cent of drivers said they would feel less safe on a motorway with no hard shoulder than a motorway with one, according to the latest poll by the IAM.

One of the main concerns of respondents is the plan to increase the distance between safety refuges with forty-eight per cent of respondents believing that safety refuges should be no more than 0.45km apart.

Forty per cent of respondents are sceptical that new monitoring systems on smart motorways, such as electronic signs, can protect them in the event of stopping in a running lane.

Other survey findings include: sixty-seven per cent of respondents said they haven’t seen any publicity about smart motorways; a third of respondents (thirty-two per cent) would support the legalising of undertaking on smart motorways; forty-two per cent believe Smart motorways have reduced congestion and forty-three per cent of respondents said it has improved their journey times.

IAM chief executive Simon Best said: “Smart motorways are being rolled out across England but our survey shows that drivers want more reassurance and information on how safe they will be and how to use them.  The IAM has been supportive of hard shoulder running but we have always said that the 503 Highways Agency must be quick to learn and implement any real world lessons as more schemes come into use.”

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Ramp metering delivers - again
    January 27, 2012
    Though still controversial, ramp metering, which has been around for nearly 50 years, continues to deliver substantial benefits, and generally for relatively small cost. Kansas City is a case in point. In March 2010, Kansas City Scout, a partnership between the Missouri and Kansas Departments of Transportation to provide ITS for the greater Kansas City Area, activated the first ramp metering system in the region. The project is located on an 8.85km (5.5 mile) section of Interstate 435 from Metcalf Avenue to
  • Road pricing is inevitable – because the ‘user pays’ principle is fair
    June 14, 2018
    We pay for roads through our taxes: the poor pay proportionately more, and effectively subsidise the rich. It would be fairer to accept the ‘user pays’ principle, says Dr John Walker. Road pricing is already used worldwide to combat congestion and pollution, to compensate for falling revenues from fuel duty (‘gas tax’), to provide an alternative (and fairer) means of charging motorists than the 80-year old fuel tax and to improve the efficiency of and expand transport infrastructure. However, it could and s
  • Missouri’s smart solution for rural road monitoring
    July 7, 2017
    David Crawford sees how Missouri is using commercially available information to rapidly improve monitoring and driver information on rural highways. Missouri is a predominantly rural state with the second largest number of farms in the country and agriculture the main occupation in 97 of its 114 counties. US statistics starkly reveal how road accidents in rural areas tend to be more serious than in urban regions and of the 32,000 US motorists killed each year, 54% die on roads in rural areas even though onl
  • IAM shocked by the worst speeders in England and Wales
    February 12, 2015
    The UK’s Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) has lifted the lid on the worst examples of excessive speeding caught on safety cameras across England and Wales in 2014. Britain’s two worst speeders were caught at 146mph, both by Kent Police on the M25, one travelling anti-clockwise, the other going clockwise. There were three other recorded instances of speeds of 140mph or more; 145mph on the M6 toll road (70mph limit), 141mph on the A1 Great Ponton Northbound road (70mph limit) and 140mph on the A5 C