Tag: road safety

• RIS 3 to feature “Safety National Programme”

  Back on the subject of what National Highways might actually deliver by way of safety improvements during the new Road Investment Strategy (RIS), a minister has confirmed that there will at least be one of the new-style National Programmes with “safety” as a title.

  With the 2026-31 strategy (RIS 3) is set to be published this week, probably Thursday, here’s what last summer’s draft RIS said:

  We are considering introducing new National Programmes to deliver defined outputs that support RIS objectives or commitments which are not within other programmes (for example, supporting specific programmes of activity around safety and environmental mitigation). These types of projects would have been funded via the Designated Funds in RIS1 and RIS2 but by making them distinct programmes we can more effectively monitor their delivery and outcomes. If these National Programmes were to feature in RIS3, their core purposes would remain the same as the Designated Funds, but they will provide a different delivery and funding model to complement the more flexible Designated Funds. If approved, the scope and size of Designated Funds will need to be reviewed as we define exactly what should be considered under each programme.

  In response to a written parliamentary question from Helen Morgan, Liberal Democrat MP for North Shropshire, roads minister Lilian Greenwood said:

  National Highways has assessed the safety performance of the 6-mile section of the A483 between Oswestry and the Welsh Border, which includes the Llynclys Crossroads. Improvements to the route are being considered for delivery as part of the Safety National Programme within RIS3, which is due to be published later in March.

  

  The background to this is that two years ago Morgan (pictured) welcomed plans to cut the speed limit and install speed cameras at Llynclys Crossroads but this was subject to funding that never materialised. Now National Highways is believed to be looking at a roundabout, which would be a lot more expensive.

  It remains to be seen what the budget for the National Programme will be and indeed whether the A483 will be part of it, but a dedicated fund for safety is an improvement on the “Safety and Congestion” designated fund in the last RIS.

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  2026.03.23

• Third time lucky on National Highways’ most dangerous roads?

  With the third Road Investment Strategy (RIS 3) due imminently, does the latest safety report from National Highways’ regulator give any reliable hints about what the government-owned company will be expected to do to improve the inherent safety of its roads?

  While the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) seems to be on a mission to give National Highways a free pass as it fails badly to meet its safety targets, its recent annual assessment of safety performance on the strategic road network suggests that National Highways is planning to make at least some improvements.

  iRAP star rating provides an objective measure of the level of ‘built-in’ safety for vehicle occupants, motorcyclists, cyclists and pedestrians. It uses star ratings on a five-point scale, where a 1-star rating reflects a high-risk road with little safety infrastructure, while 5-star indicates a road with minimal risk, designed for safety.

  As part of our work to assess National Highways’ approach to improving safety we asked the company to demonstrate how it uses iRAP assessments to inform the development of safety interventions on the SRN. We have reviewed case studies and evidence the company has used to develop schemes currently in feasibility and design stages, for potential delivery in road period 3 (RP3).

  The report concludes:

  The evidence provided shows that National Highways is applying iRAP analysis to existing 1- and 2-star routes to identify the interventions most likely to improve safety outcomes. These include measures such as improved lane delineation, enhanced signing, pedestrian and cyclist safety improvements, speed management and access control (where road users join the SRN from local or other major roads). The aim of these interventions is to raise the star rating of the route and reduce the predicted number of KSI casualties over time.

  

  A cynic like me might think identifying potential interventions is pretty meaningless unless there is a chance of delivering them.

  But the flipside of this is that both the company and its regulator must have some expectation that resources will be provided in RIS 3 for this purpose.

  The problem is that the draft RIS 3, published in the summer, is so vague.

  Let’s start with what National Highways said in its 2023 Initial Report for the RIS that was due to start in 2025 until the new government put it back a year:

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  2026.03.20

• Did Cabinet Office comms diktat cost lives?

  The Office of Rail and Road’s (ORR) annual assessment of safety performance on the strategic road network, published today, provides some explanation for the Department for Transport (DfT) telling National Highways to cut back its safety plan for the current (interim) year.

  By way of a quick recap, I exclusively revealed that transport secretary Heidi Alexander told the company of which she is the sole owner to remove one action from its planned Safety Action Plan 2025-26. This was the HGV “know your zones” campaign. National Highways also curtailed two other road safety awareness campaigns.

  All three had the expected impact of reducing serious casualties.

  In its latest report, the ORR comments on National Highways’ Interim Delivery Plan, which included the safety plan:

  As we reported last year, government mandated a reduction in budgets for communication campaigns in 2024, which resulted in National Highways scaling back some of its proposed activities.

  

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  2026.03.19

• Even less committed to road safety

  National Highways has effectively confirmed that it will halve the budget of its Driving for Better business campaign, which aims to reduce work‑related road risk.

  Fleet News has reported that:

  Fleet News understands that details around the future funding of the road safety programme are included in a draft business plan submitted by National Highways in response to the Government’s draft Road Investment Strategy (RIS).

  Sources suggest its annual budget will be halved from around £750,000 to £375,000 for the next financial year (2026/27).

  

  It notes that:

  Asked about the future of the Driving for Better Business campaign by Fleet News, National Highways wouldn’t be drawn on specifics, but said it remained “committed” to the programme.

  A National Highways spokesperson added: “National Highways funding for this programme continues, but we are reviewing as part of developing our plans for the next ‘road period’.

  “As with all our work, we regularly review to ensure we deliver the best value for taxpayer.”

  The non-denial, the use of the word “committed”, and the reference to “the best value for taxpayer” (sic) all provide a strong indication that the story is true.

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  2026.03.13

• Greenwood parks pavement parking ban…again

  If you detected some reluctance from successive governments to tackle drivers who park on footways, the latest written parliamentary answers on the subject show that ministers are in no hurry to give councils the powers they promised them in January.

  Transport minister Lilian Greenwood was asked by fellow Labour MP Peter Dowd what the government’s proposed timeline is. She replied:

  On 8 January 2026, I announced the publication of the government’s formal response to the 2020 public consultation ‘Pavement parking: options for change’ which sets out what the government plans to do to tackle pavement parking. In the first instance we plan to give local authorities powers before the end of this year to issue Penalty Charge Notices for vehicles parked in a way that unnecessarily obstructs the pavement. The Department will engage with local authorities on the detail of these plans.

  

  As I reported at the time, the government said it would “create powers to enable local transport authorities to prohibit pavement parking in their areas” and in the meantime “enable local authorities to enforce against ‘unnecessary obstruction’ of the pavement”.

  At that time, Commons Transport Committee Chair Ruth Cadbury said:

  The Transport Committee will be watching closely to ensure that legislation is enacted without further delays.

  But, although ministers originally said the powers for councils to prohibit pavement parking in their areas would be created “at the next legislative opportunity” and “in parallel” with secondary legislation to allow enforcement against unnecessary obstruction of the pavement, the new area-wide power is clearly not happening any time soon.

  In relation to the pledge to allow enforcement against unnecessary obstruction of the pavement this year, Greenwood told another Labour MP, Anneliese Dodds:

  My officials have begun work on secondary legislation and guidance for this option, and associated stakeholder engagement.

  Oh good, more consultation.

  2026.03.06

• Concrete barriers and the weight of expectation

  This week, I was asked to look at and comment on this BBC story about a mysterious “drainage defect” that has led to the closure of the “lane three” northbound and southbound on the M1.

  Work is continuing on a stretch of the M1 in Bedfordshire as engineers investigate a “drainage defect” in the central reservation, according to National Highways.

  Lane closures between junction 12 at Toddington and junction 13 for Brogborough were first put in place on 27 January.

  Although the story was dated nearly two weeks ago (14 February) at a time when all lanes on the northbound carriageway were open, it appears that lane three is again closed in both directions.

  

  When it says “no delays expected”, the hard shoulder on this dynamic hard shoulder scheme is being used.

  It looks as if the drainage defect has been caused by the replacement of the steel barrier with concrete, which has somehow compromised the drainage in one or more ways, including possibly changing the hydraulics and compressing the soil.

  This has in turn weakened the barrier supports, according to National Highways.

  And with cabling having been laid, it looks as if it might be a complex problem to fix.

  

  Tony Fisher/BBC

  It’s a shame. I have written before about what National Highways was pro-actively doing to replace steel barriers with concrete, which is safer because of the reduced risk of head-on crossover crashes.

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  2026.02.27

• Killer road safety officer walks free

  Last week, as Barry O’Sullivan was convicted of causing death by careless driving on a non operational smart motorway, the Telegraph reported:

  A road safety supervisor who struck and killed a pedestrian while speeding at almost twice the limit has avoided jail.

  Martin Hayward was driving his Audi A4 at up to 56 mph in a 30 mph zone in Southampton when Clare Munn stepped out onto a crossing.

  The National Highways road safety supervisor was said to be “flying” down the road and had already overtaken several cars before colliding with Ms Munn at between 40 and 50 mph.

  

  Yes, Hayward worked for National Highways and safety is its highest priority. It has not responded to my enquiry as to whether he still works for them.

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  2026.02.25

• No winners in smart motorway death crash case

  Barry O’Sullivan has been found guilty of causing the death of Pulvinder Dhillon by careless driving on a smart motorway section of the M4 in 2022 but the verdict in no way lets National Highways off the hook and it is unarguable that the crash would not have happened if the “smart” technology had done its job.

  A jury sat through the trial and heard the evidence – plus the judge’s summing up – and decided that O’Sullivan was guilty so I won’t argue with them.

  But in this case it has always been possible to argue both that O’Sullivan was culpable despite National Highways’ shocking failings and that National Highways failed abysmally despite O’Sullivan’s culpability.

  

  I first wrote about the crash soon after it happened and was told by a senior National Highways official that the stopped vehicle detection (SVD) technology had worked as far as possible, except that a fault with the wider system meant that alerts were not posted on gantries.

  The M4 [incident] was a particular issue with some of our back office systems that were offline at the time – we’ve now corrected the system so that can’t happen. The scheme was still in operational acceptance so, as tragic as it was, this was a shortcoming of a system that [hadn’t yet] been handed into business as usual.

  What I didn’t know then was that this was the fifth day of this fault and that National Highways had failed to effect what turned out to be quite a quick fix because the fault was wrongly categorised.

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  2026.02.18

• Smart motorway death crash fault “assigned 7-day priority”

  As the trial of Barry O’Sullivan for allegedly causing the death of Pulvinder Dhillon by careless driving approaches its conclusion, the story gets worse for National Highways, whatever the verdict.

  ITV news reports that:

  An unresolved technical failure on the M4 smart motorway network meant alerts for broken-down vehicles were not properly communicated in the days leading up to a fatal collision, a court has heard.

  The technical malfunction on March 2 2022 was flagged by the system and automatically generated tickets, but they were assigned to the wrong National Highways team and with an incorrect priority level of “7-day resolution”, the court was further told.

  This meant the alert system had been malfunctioning for five days when Barry O’Sullivan, 45, crashed his grey Ford Transit Connect into the back of a Nissan Micra that had come to a halt in the fast lane of the motorway on March 7 2022.

  

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  2026.02.17

• A disgraceful use of safety statistics

  The release of POPE evaluation reports on smart motorways has triggered a debate in the House of Lords, with a government spokesperson quoting a statistic about the high level of danger on A roads to suggest that smart motorways are safer by comparison.

  The debate began with Lord Harries of Pentregarth asking the government:

  what assessment they have made of the post opening project evaluations of smart motorways in relation to (1) safety, and (2) value for money.

  The initial answer from Baroness (Judith) Blake of Leeds, previously leader of Leeds City Council, appeared to be that the government had made no assessment in relation to value for money:

  While National Highways reports show that smart motorways are meeting or exceeding safety objectives in all but one upgrade, we know that people need to feel safe as well as be safe. That is why National Highways invested some £900 million to improve safety and educate drivers. The reports show that these upgrades have added vital capacity to some of the country’s busiest roads and are largely on course to meet their environmental goals.

  

  Given that most smart motorways were literally a way of adding capacity to motorways by using the hard shoulder as a running lane, it’s a bit desperate to say the POPE reports show that they had done this.

  But Lord Harries tried again on the value for money point:

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  2026.02.16