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Just one in 10 feel safer on ‘smart’ motorways, finds report

Seven out of 10 admitted that All Lane Running motorways were more dangerous than ones with a traditional hard shoulder

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Smart motorway refuge areas

Only one in 10 drivers feel safer on an All Lane Running (ALR) smart motorway compared to a traditional motorway with a hard shoulder, a new survey has found.

In fact, close to half of the 15,000 respondents surveyed by the AA said that they strongly felt that they were more dangerous.

It follows on from a survey in February 2016 which found that almost a quarter of 25,208 people questioned via an online poll believed that 1.5 miles was a suitable distance between Emergency Refuge Areas (ERAs) on smart motorways, but this has now fallen to 16 per cent.

From April 2020, all new sections of smart motorway will have an ERA at every mile, but just two-fifths of respondents think this is an appropriate distance. Almost two-thirds think the distance should be decreased to having an ERA situated every half a mile.

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Edmund King, AA president says; “We believe the Secretary of State should now announce a review into the safety of All Lane Running Schemes.

“Unfortunately we have already seen fatalities where vehicles have been left in vulnerable positions in live lanes. Previous research has shown that if Stopped Vehicle Detection is not in place it takes an average of 17 minutes to spot a stationary vehicle in a live lane.

“Our new study shows that public trust on removing the hard shoulder has pretty much evaporated. Before any further schemes begin, we need an urgent and independent review into the safety of existing schemes.”

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