Road safety campaigners at the AA have called for smart motorways to be urgently “abolished” in a major driving rule change.
The motoring experts have called for hard shoulders to be immediately “reinstated” on existing smart motorways.
They warn the roads come with “serious safety concerns” which have not been addressed by recent upgrades.
Smart motorways were installed across the UK in a bid to cut journey times with the hard shoulder used as a running lane.
However, the roads have been targeted by safety campaigners after a string of fatal accidents in recent years.
The AA outlined its stance on the issue in their latest ‘Motoring Manifesto’ which was released on Monday morning.
The report read: “From the outset, The AA has raised serious safety concerns about ‘smart’ motorways.
“Despite efforts to retrofit safety features at great expense (£900m), we supported the decision to stop new smart motorways, but believe that the hard shoulder should be reinstated on existing smart motorway schemes using dynamic hard shoulder technology.
“Congestion benefits of smart motorways are currently lost as more than one-third of drivers don’t use the inside lane due to fear of broken-down vehicles ahead and any incident leads to severe congestion and delays for emergency services getting to the scene of crashes.
“Reinstatement should come with the instigation of strict lane discipline campaigns to maintain capacity.”
According to new data from the AA, a staggering 81 percent of road users would like to see All Lane running smart motorways scrapped.
The latest news comes a week after National Highways announced the installation of 52 new emergency areas on roads across the South East.
The M25 will get 24 extra energy bays which are 100m spaces where drivers can stop if they suffer an issue behind the wheel.
Meanwhile, officials have promised to install an extra 10 bays on the M3 with 12 added to the M4.
Reacting to the news, experts at the RAC also appeared to back immediate changes to the roads including the possible return of hard shoulders.
Head of roads policy Simon Williams said: “The ultimate question remains: will the motoring public ever be entirely comfortable driving on the 200-plus miles of motorway where the hard shoulder has been permanently removed?
“The hard shoulder is by no means a safe location, but in the event of a breakdown, it is far safer than being stranded in a live lane of traffic waiting for the ‘red X closed lane’ sign to be turned on and then for other drivers to do the right thing and move into another lane.
“We continue to believe that the Government should either convert existing all-lane-running smart motorways to ‘dynamic’ ones, where the hard shoulder is only opened to traffic during busy periods, or repaint the white line and reintroduce a permanent hard shoulder on these roads.
“In either case, queue-busting technology, such as variable speed limits, could remain to help ensure traffic flows as smoothly as possible.”
