UK government SCRAPS smart motorway plans | 'all those deaths were unnecessary' 

I'd like to know, who thought they were a good idea in the first place, any fool could see, they weren't.

Exactly. We need all previous hard shoulders returned.

It`s less than 12 months since Grant Shapps claimed that these death trapps were safe.He should hang his head in shame and resign,he has blood on his hands.

It’s all about the ANPR camera system. The ‘smart motorway’ was just a trojan horse to being in mass tracking as a precursor to road charging.

Just because you put the word "Smart" in the title of a product and or initiative does not mean its a good thing, Hopefully the family of the people that lost their lives to these things can do a "Smart Lawsuit" or something...

Why are the planners of these abominations not in prison for manslaughter??? THEY SHOULD BE!!!

I still think all the smart motorways will be turned in toll roads , Said it for years

If you read Rishi's actual quotes, they're not being scrapped. They're just pausing, no doubt until people stop paying attention. Hence the existing ones remaining in place

The money that was earmarked for these new smart motorways should be ring-fenced for the reinstatement of hard shoulders that were turned into driving lanes!

collateral damage should NOT be accepted by anyone just 1 death should bring the full force on the law on the instigators whoever they are.....

How many died on the altar of state initiatives ..! ?

I would like to know how the smart motorway passed the safety audit when the hardshoulder was seen as an essential safety element of the normal motorway; I would suggest it was weasel words that got it approved !

The M42 Junctions 1-3 - I have just come down from Birmingham to London. There is mile after mile of purple coloured, plastic conduit zip tied to perimeter wood fences above ground containing the supply cables for the new cameras. Anyone wanting to disrupt our smart motorways could do so in multiple areas with a pair of wirecutters.

Well somebody got rich off it, so job done

The White English population of England has NOT increased in the last 40 years because we generally have 2 children each, All of the extra population is immigration.

Have not driven for 10 years . Wow could not imagine driving without the safety net of the hard shoulder

Families of the lost souls on once safe now dangerous motorways should bring collective charge`s against the politicians that committed manslaughter against their relatives.

Because they are still getting revenue for Smart Motorways, the amount of tickets they issue because of the ridiculous variable speeds must bring in a fair amount of money.

Why can the families take the PM personally to Court? He has the responsibility so he could be taken to Court, he has declared he knows they are unsafe.... and the personal money to made fork out millions.

Smart Motorways were just a marketing exercise to cover the process of removing the hard shoulder to create more capacity. It's the motoring equivalent of an ocean liner removing lifeboats to fit in more passengers (and we all know how that ended up). The government were too cheapskate to spend proper money upgrading and widening our 1960s motorway network and too gutless to stand up to the eco brigade who opposed that. If they'd invested properly in the first place we wouldn't need to keep bodging things, but that's the British way.

Smart motor ways are dangerous madness

Does this government have a single brain cell between em ? It's so ludicrous keeping the smart motorways already built when THEY KNOW they are killer roads. It's mind boggling and stupidity of the first order. 😕😕😖

War against humanity

Utter incompetence, some techie bods in the highways dept though everything in life can be run by a computer, what fools they are.

Anything with the word smart infront of it is anything but smart, it’s a word used for marketing so people think it’s a good thing,

Smart motorways who should be charged for killing people.

Surely issues like this should be on a website before a penny spent. Get feedback on idea from general public. Before the first one was active I said they were lethal and have witnessed people trapped in their cars with no way of escaping. People should be in prison for murder

The government doesn't have citizens interests at heart. Deal with the reality!

8 million more on benefits.

The M1 near me took years to convert to death trap. Trsffic disruption for years was s nightmare, then it opened and 2 deaths within weeks. M56 near Mcr airport just about to open. Can't even begin to get my head around how these things were even considered. Follow the money I always say!

Does this mean they’re gonna remove the road works off the M42 now?

The Government! .... Saving money is more important than someone's life!.

Can't we all drive in lane 2, leaving lane 1 as hard shoulder, just a thought?

Always remember those smartsigns and thought who wants a stupid motorway.. Nervous wreck when further up north when sometimes in use and not but ppl generally ignored

Whoever thought up and implemented "SMART" lanes on motorways should be in a lunatic asylum. Perhaps he was already. In any case the results were perfectly predictable. (Green Fire, UK) 🌈🦉

I dont believe they will stop this , it is a directive from WEF

My Bandit Motorcycle broke down (water in the fuel tank) on a small bit of smart motorway near Bristol during peak times when all the lanes are open. I was on one side of the barrier, pulling my bike into the barrier while cars and lorries were blasting past at 60-70mph within about a foot of my bike. I had no way of pushing my bike to safety, couldn't even free both hands to call for recovery and help. Admittedly, about 5 minutes later they had closed the lane and a Highways Agency lady in a pickup truck escorted me to the next rescue area but it was a pretty scary expirience while I was wondering if I would even be able to get out of there...

Anyone who has lost a family member on these so called smart motorways should be suing the government for all they've got

Problem is lorries, all fatalities involve them. Ban lorry drivers from driving on motorways during the day. They're all bad drivers anyway who want to drive across all lanes side by side

BringBackTheHardShoulders #BBTHS

It’s a smoke screen for the next plan of Pay Per Mile…. That’s why all the cameras were installed !

Nice work guys .spot on

I remember when they were doing m20 here in Kent, what a waste of money this was and it never needed doing in the 1st place and NOW we have to put up with this STUPID movable barriers between maidstone and Ashford.

I bet Nigel thinks Tony Blair could sort it out.

Every where we go we are being fined by going over a few miles and I am sick and tired of the abuse and the fines that we have to put up with this shit and the kerb crawling speed of 20mph is so depressing

I was at Clackett Lane South some six/eight years ago and, having this concern then, asked two Highways Agency officers their opinion, both being former police they said "An accident waitibg to happen".

From Sheffield right down to Leicester is smart motorway. Most of the time it's 4 lanes and a hard shoulder which is sound. The M6 uses the hard shoulder as a 4th lane which is a bit naughty.

Shame on everyone involved in the development of smart motorways ! You have blood on your hands !

Until the governent is forced to do the common sense thing and reinstate the hard shoulder, there is a simple answer for senible drivers - avoid driving in the left lane on smart motorways where there is no hard shoulder. I can't imagine that procecutions would follow if the majority did this and the defense was that to use the left lane would be dangerous to other motorway users. On the rare occasions that I have driven on these "smart" motorways I have tried to drive in lane 2, if necessary increaseing my speed to match that of the traffic flow in that lane. This could be helped by a publc campaign, maybe witty bumper stickers?

Scrapped because there'll be less cars on the roads in the years to come, (we're being priced off the road). So why bother with the expense of it?

The people could protest by not using what was the hard shoulder and reduce back to three lanes voluntarily ……. People power must rule in this case .

"Duty of care" is a bad, sad joke. The not so smart motorways are not just "not safe" they are bloody dangerous! But then, so are the thousands of potholes adorning our roads. Try riding a motorcycle (particularly at night) to appreciate just how dangerous our roads have become. The motorist is the most taxed people in the country, and we are obliged to drive/ride on dangerous roads!

Could people sue the government for loss of their vehicle or their life if they get wiped out on these ludicrous "smart" motorways ? If someone breaks down and has to stop on a live lane we all know the chances of being hit is very high, the government now knows these motorways are dangerous so I think they should be sued for negligence if they do not reinstate the hard shoulders.

The lesson to learn from this BS is, that we should never trust ANYTHING SMART !

So are the people responsible for these smart motorways going to be held accountable for the deaths caused

Smart motorways are bloody dangerous, and I speak from personal experience. Whoever even came up with the idea in the first place needed their sanity brought into question!

I despair at the lack of intelligence in the government and political parties

Victims families should bring a class action..simple.

Even a foreign trucker, parked up for the night, in a safety refuge. Hope he got woke up and fined heavily. He just passed Newport Parnell services south and he was 1 minute away to come off at JCT 14 M1 Milton Keynes. This no understand, no comprendi crap don’t wash anymore .

I couldn’t imagine breaking down on a daft motorway built by killers

"low policing presence", before, or perhaps alongside, the building of a genuine fourth lane the road capacity would be VASTLY increased by instilling/enforcing good lane discipline.

All the deaths should be compensated by the Government

I did lost job, when I did say to my manager 2 years ago, smart motorway is very idiotic idea.

Was on the M3 near Camberley the other day.....signs said issue ahead but no lanes closed....get to the next layby, car broken down with traffic officer vehicle there.....300m up the road a bmw x5 broken down on the inside lane with people having to swerve to miss it at the last second.....so dangerous.

If they think these abominations are smart god help us what they consider bloody dangerous then

I drive trucks on these roads everyday and i can tell you most days i see a vehicle broken down with no hard shoulder to pull up on to, it makes me cringe. I have witnessed some real scary situations with traffic not just fear for the unfortunate people who have a full motorway of traffic bearing down on them but the collisions happening behind the terrified owner of the broken down vehicle, its madness. When your used to constantly observing whats happening all around you while sat behind the wheel, look in the mirrors and look how close people are to smashing in to your vehicle for just slowing down carfully, people are getting hurt if not killed behind you now think of the person sat in a broken down vehicle in front of you. MADNESS

Anything they class as smart ISN'T. I think our government is classed as Smart 😂😂

I am an HGV driver. I drive from Plymouth to London and back every night. This journey, assuming no hold ups, takes 4 hours 15 minutes of my 4hour 30 minute driving period. Thanks to smart motorways, and the highways agency's love of getting cones out every night, I find my self often running out of time. With the smart motorways, you often have miles of low speed limits often for no reason. especially at midnight to 4 am when there is no one on the road anyway. Smart motorways are not the answer. And if they are so smart, why do they have to close the motorways all the times for upgrades? Before smart motorways, you never closed them. You introduced a contraflow to do the upgrade/repairs so that the traffic can still flow. Traffic still moved. And often with closures, they send you on diversions through places where I really should not be taking a 60 foot long, 16 foot tall 44 ton HGV. On one occasion, I had a 40mph speed limit starting on the M40, leading through to the M25 anti clockwise, that took me all the way down to the M3 (My usual junction). There were 5 miles of cones over this 14 mile stretch, dropping the m25 to one lane, and within the cones was 3 service vehicles, and all they were doing was changing light bulbs. This 14 miles of 40mph added 11 minutes to my journey. This may not sound like much, but to an HGV driver it can mean the difference between going home at the end of your shift, or sleeping in a lay-by.

I'm a truck driver and I got a speeding fine for doing 46 on a motoway get rid of these variable speed limits

What about Boris' funding research into putting cables above every motorway for electric vehicle charging? Was it £10 MILLION to tell him we don't use trams any more?

I'd like to see most of the UK government scraped and replaced with normal common sense caring people

Better late than never. #SCRAPSmartMotorways

No need to spend any more on 'widening' motorways. They won't be required when we take your cars away.

If you know a motorway is unsafe without a hard shoulder (horrifying to think about) why would you build it? What happens if you break down and there's no hard shoulder? 😱

'all those deaths were unnecessary'. The US might call that "collateral damage".

They are obviously not bothered about people dieing?.

It staggers me beyond belief that an ordinary bloke like me, average intelligence, but a regular motorway commuter, knew as soon as they were announced, that "smart" motorways were going to be a lethally bad idea. So are we supposed to believe that if ordinary citizen Smith could see the dangers, the civil service and the government couldn't? I prefer to believe that they knew the dangers full well, but ultimately didn't care. In which case every assh++e behind the introduction of "smart" motorways, must be bought to justice and charged with at best, manslaughter, though I'd prefer wilful murder. People have died who would be alive but for them. They were killed for nothing.

Smart motorways are there to save money on building new lanes. Saving money is more important than saving lives.

Sadly I seem to me that 'Great Britain' has a long sad history of doing things on the cheep! Everything from housing to dumb motorways!

How many people have to die before these fools listen to what every driver could have told them, they ignored the AA and RAC who made them aware of what the consequences would be if they did this ridiculous thing of doing away with hard shoulders,I hate smart motorways and deliberately never use the lane that they created out of the hard shoulder. There’s no second chances when a 44 ton truck travelling at nearly 60 mph hit a broken down vehicle that is stuck in one of the lanes when that broken down vehicle could have been on the hard shoulder, I’ve been driving HGVS all my adult life but now retired and these motorways without the hard shoulder terrified me,it’s nothing short of criminal building them and it should be stopped immediately before someone else loses their life.

STABLE DOOR CLOSED SEEMS TO COME TO MIND

The camera thing is a good idea and the high tech on these motorways but not how they removed hard shoulders just for a pointless 4th lane!!!!

Smart motorway are dangerous and useless, better fix roads as they are terrible even on highway especiay when driving at night at 70mph and catch that crater and pray to stay alive after collision...

Westminster won't fully abandon "smart motorways" as to do so would be tantamount to an admission of failure. And politicians don't do mea culpa and apologies. No matter how many innocents they kill.

Life is valueless when it’s about Making money for government

Maybe if they invested more in road construction in the uk these so called smart motorways would never have been needed..the real problem is the annual rise in uk traffic volume...It should be obvious to everyone that the very fact a hard shoulder is now an extra lane emphasises the traffic problem..in 20 years time unless some drastic lane expansion occurs our road network will grind to a halt and by then it will be too late...

I hate smart motorways. The muppets (or A.I.) that control the speed limit on the m1 do nothing but cause problems.

Can we get a smart government for a change ?

When you break down or have an accident you are told to wait outside the car in case of another car or truck hitting you. Has anyone ever seen a gap at the small places where the sos telephones are to accommodate a wheelchair? No you won’t. So in reality if you are carrying a disabled passenger in a wheelchair, you are supposed to leave them in the car!! Disabled people are also humans but if they don’t put back the hard shoulder, a lot more people are either going to end up disabled or dead.

I have always thought that anything with the word SMART in it is evil as witness smart meters, etc. Mobile phones are just as bad.

Whoever decided to put these in place, and to change the advice from; - ‘Get out of you car and get off the motorway.’ to - ‘park in the live lane and stay in your car’ deserves a sentence for manslaughter imo. And as for the gantry ‘smart signs’, whoever sits and changes the speed limits is taking the pi55. All of them. How is it safe to drive at 40-Nothing-Nothing-40-70-40-Nothing-40. Because that’s what they do. Ridiculous idea that only idiots would implement.

The "SMART MONEY"WAS GIVEN TO THEIR MATES to build them.!!!!!!!!!!!!.

Another waste of public money was a bad idea in first place

It's built for profit, as soon as those speed signs are on, even when not needed they fine you for speeding when there's no obstruction or reason for it. Money making scam. Frustrating

We have camera systems that can read your number plate know the speed your doing and know how many people are in the vehicle but we don't have any that know what to do if they see a smoking vehicle or one with it's hazard lights on.

Not going to be a problem, as there will be no cars on the road in the next few years, to, wait for it, save the environment!!!! Where are all the ev charging infrastructure. Fishy fishing just swiping it away as he knows what’s coming of course. Our unelected leader reading from a script 😢

Over the last 45 years I have driven almost 2.5 million miles on the UK roads, Up to 85000 miles per year as part of my work. I can say WITHOUT DOUBT that most, if not all, traffic calming schemes. including smart motorways are IDIOTIC and just make driving MUCH more dangerous. Money making scam revenue traps add to this danger. Roads that used to flow freely prior to being 'smart' were turned into start / stop death zones and when this happened the government should have reverted them back to proper roads but instead they doubled down and extended the 'smart' zones to try to reduce the accidents that THEY were causing. Unfortunately the so called smart motorways are only as smart as the fools who are in charge of them. It is clear that someone who sets a low speed limit on a motorway and can see on the cameras that they instantly create traffic jams and carnage but never learn are inept and have no idea what safety is all about.

Was on the m1 yesterday, it was so scary! It’s a stupid thing, not smart at all!!! Many cars break down, no telling where they may conk, including the smart motorway, they don’t do it where there is a lay-by or phone, often there is not a choice, now there is nowhere to go, you can’t pull over, we become sitting targets for impact! now we have no hard shoulder, we know it’s more dangerous than ever!!! The motorway used to be one of the safest roads to travel on, more safe than A roads & B roads, not now! I live in Bedford, with family in Northampton and the most direct route is the M1, I can’t stand it and now try to take back roads, horrible in winter!!! please close the new extra lane and make it back into a hard shoulder again! You can still watch traffic flow! To be honest during the roadworks to install the smart motorway we all had to drive at the set speed which was suggested with big brother watching. Slowing us when congestion happened, 30 40 50 or 60, just pop traffic flow speeds and most follow the rules, most stay in lane, except for the dorks overtaking in the inside lanes trying to get ahead ( idiots) Bring back the hard shoulder please’ Please please 🙏 Save lives !

They're doing what they were built to do. Death rates go up(depopulation), insurance premiums go up because of all the "accidents", people can't afford to drive. It's a win-win for the powers that be.

Not going to scrap the One's that Already exist though 😕 😒