Tag: road safety

• Can AVs do it on a cold, wet night in Stoke?

  There are of course the usual platitudes and the usual spin in the Department for Transport’s (DfT) announcement of a new consultation of self-driving vehicles, but one aspect of the safety case deserves a bit of unpicking.

  Launching a consultation on a draft statement of safety principles for automated vehicles (AV)s, the DfT makes clear that the destination is clear and it’s about how we get there:

  the future rollout of self-driving vehicles across the UK moves a step closer

  consultation will ensure the technology is rolled out safely and responsibly, giving people confidence in self-driving vehicles while keeping road safety at the heart of their introduction

  

  And of course there is the usual bullshit claim about the economic case:

  the self-driving sector could create thousands of skilled jobs and help unlock billions of pounds for the economy by 2035, supporting economic growth across the UK, according to 2020 estimates

  These estimates were about the value to the economy of the self-driving sector, not the GDP uplift that it is expected to produce. Most of this value represents the displacement or restructuring of existing transport, logistics, and automotive spending.

  But how safe are AVs going to be? I came across an opinion piece in Traffic Technology Today by Professor Nick Reed of Reed Mobility, first published in the February/March edition of TTi magazine:

  When weather changes how pedestrians and cyclists behave, human drivers adapt instinctively. Professor Nick Reed asks whether automated vehicles can do the same — a question that takes on fresh relevance after Waymo this week recalled nearly 3,800 robotaxis over a software fault that allowed vehicles to drive into standing water on higher-speed roads.

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  2026.06.17

• “You are at the mercy of technology”

  AA president Edmund King has made clear that he is not going to stop banging on about “the massive scandal of smart motorways”, and in particular the continuing failure to close the gaps between emergency areas.

  King was interviewed by Rob Cubitt, managing director of Cubitt Cars on The Logbook, the YouTube channel sponsored by AA Cars.

  According to the AA press release:

  The conversation covered the state of Britain’s roads, potholes, smart motorways, roadworks, driver taxes and the impact on motorists and dealers.

  

  King cited the recent case of van driver Barry O’Sullivan, who was convicted of causing the death of Pulvinder Dhillon on the M4, in a case where the “smart” technology had failed.

  But he singled out the distance between emergency refuge areas as an issue that exacerbated technology failings:

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  2026.06.11

• Actively working on solutions that could improve safety

  A Tory council leader and a Labour metro mayor have formed an unholy alliance to bring the scrapped A1 Morpeth to Ellingham scheme back from the dead, using an unfortunate, but unrepresentative, rash of fatalities as a pretext.

  I have written extensively on this blog about how the Tory government secretly shelved the scheme, which was then officially cancelled by Labour on cost grounds.

  At the time of the cancellation, it was expected that the scheme could cost more than half a billion pounds and National Highways had already sunk £70m into it.

  Now, the BBC reports:

  Calls for safety improvements on the A1 in Northumberland have intensified after five people died in two major incidents just nine days apart.

  

  It’s a classic media framing: there have been two fatal incidents in close succession, therefore something must be done. But it looks as if Northumberland County Council leader Glen Sanderson and North East mayor Kim McGuinness are jumping on the safety issue to get capacity on the route increased though dualling.

  They have written transport secretary Heidi Alexander to urge the need for “action to avoid further fatalities on the road” but as the council’s press release makes clear

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  2026.06.03

• Not so Cleverly done: BBC bins balance, backs road building

  The BBC has a very poor, and quite late, report on the decision to cancel the A120 Braintree to Marks Tey dualling scheme, with no consideration of whether continuous road building is a good idea in a climate emergency, or even the only solution to a poor safety record.

  The cancellation of the scheme emerged when the Road Investment Strategy was published in March and it was removed from the pipeline of future works.

  Ministers say the project is no longer affordable, but some of those who live, work and travel on the trunk road are angered by the decision and fear for its future sustainability.

  

  Having admitted that it may only be “some” people who are angered by the decision, the BBC then devotes its article exclusively to those views.

  The road does appear to have an appalling safety record, approximately one fatality a year this century but:

  Average speed cameras were installed between Braintree and Marks Tey in 2025 and a new 50mph (80km/h) limit was enforced for most of the route.

  While it’s too early to tell what the impact of this might be, there will be statistics. But the BBC doesn’t need statistics, when it has subjective claims to rely on:

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  2026.05.28

• Gaslighting the public about a target that doesn’t exist

  The Department for Transport has released a written version of what it called Debrief Drop In Sessions that took place just after the Road Investment Strategy was released last month, including a sort of explanation as to why National Highways will be expected to do so little to improve safety.

  It follows comments by a senior National Highways official last month, in which he admitted that the company had not bothered with its target for the last (2020-25) RIS, because it depended on matters outside its control.
  
  As I have pointed out, what is described in the RIS as a “KPI Target” is not a target at all, but a requirement that it at least try to meet a level of casualty reduction:

  National Highways must demonstrate it has done all it reasonably can to achieve a 7.5% reduction in the number of people killed or seriously injured (KSI) on the SRN by the end of 2031, based on the 2022-24 baseline.

  

  It’s worth pointing out that transport secretary Heidi Alexander misrepresented this in her introduction to RIS 3, where she referred to:

  setting National Highways a target to achieve a 7.5% reduction

  One stakeholder at a Debrief Drop-in asked:

  Why is the safety target so unambitious, given previously the target was for zero harm by 2040?

  The answer goes back to the idea that National Highways can only control what it can control:

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  2026.05.05

• Lightwood happy with inadequate smart motorway safety provision

  The roads minister has again resisted scrutiny over the provision of emergency areas on smart motorways, implicitly admitting that they do not meet the spacing standard to which the previous government said it agreed in principle.

  

  As I have reported, the government has broken a pledge to consider adding further emergency areas under the new road investment strategy.
  
  But, faced with parliamentary questions over current spacing levels, Simon Lightwood has continued to obfuscate, relying on a definition of “places to stop in an emergency” that includes locations other than designated emergency areas.
  
  Having deployed this definition once to sidestep a question from Rotherham MP Sarah Champion about the average distance between emergency areas, Lightwood simply refused to answer a follow-up from her that explicitly excluded other places to stop:

  what is the current average distance between dedicated emergency refuge areas, excluding slip roads and junctions, on All Lane Running Smart Motorways.

  Lightwood replied:

  My previous answer on 27 April 2026 set out that the average distance between places to stop in an emergency is now less than a mile (around 0.9 miles). Design standard GD301 sets out the new spacing standard (around 3/4 mile where feasible and 1 mile maximum) and defines what a place of relative safety is. The document can be found at: GD 301 – Smart motorways.

  This obstructive and disingenuous answer not only evades the point about dedicated emergency areas but includes a crass non sequitur switch between the definitions of “places to stop in an emergency” and “a place of relative safety”.
  
  The point remains that neither definition is what the last government signed up to in principle in 2022 following a recommendation from the Transport Committee:

  The Department and National Highways should retrofit emergency refuge areas to existing all-lane running motorways to make them a maximum of 1,500 metres apart, decreasing to every 1,000 metres (0.75 miles) where physically possible.

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  2026.04.30

• Not NEAR enough

  Roads minister Simon Lightwood is clearly determined never to give a straight answer to a straight question, particularly when it comes to the lack of safety of smart motorways, and his latest evasion is to sidestep an MP’s question on emergency refuge areas.

  

  As I have written, with Department for Transport (DfT) going back on a pledge to consider improving the spacing of emergency areas, Sarah Champion MP has been asking parliamentary questions about where this leaves smart motorway safety.
  
  With the DfT signalling that it has allowed National Highways to kick the issue into the long grass, Champion’s latest question was:

  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what is the current average distance between emergency refuge areas on All Lane Running Smart Motorways.

  Lightwood being Lightwood, he answered a different question:

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  2026.04.27

• Why did council greenlight transatlantic traffic lights?

  TransportXtra has a fascinating story about a Scottish road authority being very untransparent over the installation of what appear to be wholly unnecessary traffic lights on a historic bridge, “including whether the ostensibly operational decision was, in fact, a political one”.
  
  Carlton Reid, an award-winning reporter on transport, particularly the sustainable kind, writes:

  Preliminary work has started on the installation of traffic lights beside the scenic Clachan Bridge on Scotland’s Argyll coast. Known since the early 1800s as the “Bridge over the Atlantic”, the 234-year-old crossing to the Isle of Seil attracts visitors eager to boast of their trans-oceanic journey. However, there are fears that motorists given the green light will soon act aggressively towards pedestrians on what is a much-photographed landmark.
  
  The installation of traffic lights at such a sensitive heritage site makes little sense to locals and has been described as a “1980s-style intervention” by an experienced former town planner. This place-making expert adds that the council has also ignored current guidelines on transport hierarchies.
  
  “Somebody in a car or a bus or a lorry, [will think], ‘I’ve now got the green light, there’s nobody stopping me’,” said Grant Baxter of Fife, who has spent 30 years as a chartered planner in Scottish local government.

  

  It is indeed a much-photographed landmark and I was there with my family in 2021, while staying in Oban.

  Reid adds:

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  2026.04.27

• Planning to fail

  A senior National Highways official has told MPs that the company did not create a plan to meet its 2025 casualty reduction target – which it almost certainly missed by a long way – because achieving the target was dependent on factors outside its control.
  

  The admission finally provides an answer to questions raised, but apparently not followed up, by the company’s regulator about why it did so little early in the 2020-25 roads period (RP2) to achieve its target to reduce killed and seriously injured (KSI) casualties by 50% against a 2005-09 baseline.
  

  

  Appearing before the Transport Committee on Wednesday, National Highways bosses were challenged by Labour MP Scott Arthur about the company’s expected failure to meet its target.
  

  Elliot Shaw, chief customer and strategy officer, said: “We did not have a kind of clearly defined plan because it was reliant on broader factors.”
  

  This “broader factors” argument is consistent with National Highways’ excuses for missing safety targets over many years and was part of its attempt not to have a casualty reduction target in the new road investment strategy, but I think this is the first time it has been given as a reason for not having a plan to meet the 2025 target.
  

  It is also consistent with comments from regulator the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), which was highly critical of the company in its Annual Assessment of National Highways’ performance: April 2023 to March 2024:

  While we recognise that not all the actions to reduce KSIs on the SRN are fully within the company’s control we believe that if National Highways had been more proactive in recognising the risks earlier in the road period and developed more robust safety plans sooner this would have increased the likelihood of meeting the target.

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  2026.04.24

• National Highways kicks smart motorway safety upgrade into the long grass

  Transport minister Simon Lightwood has published a response to a fellow Labour MP’s written parliamentary question about emergency (refuge) areas on smart motorways but, as part of an ongoing and determined effort to avoid scrutiny, has made no attempt to answer the question.
  
  As I noted on Monday, a question put down by Sarah Champion MP followed up on my revelation that the new Road Investment Strategy said nothing about adding new emergency areas to meet the spacing standard to which the government agreed in 2022:

  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the Third Report of the Transport Committee of Session 2021–22, Rollout and safety of smart motorways, HC26, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that emergency refuges on All Lane Running Smart Motorways are spaced no more than 1,500m apart, and no more than 1,000m apart where possible.

  

  Predictably, Lightwood referenced the delivery of what the (Tory) government said it would do at the time, but made no mention of ensuring that the space standard would be met:

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  2026.04.23