Vital smart motorway safety technology has broken down on one of the country’s busiest stretches of road – sparking fears for drivers’ lives.
According to internal emails, the Daily Mail has discovered that the radar system used by M25 for identifying stopped cars within twenty seconds of detection was seriously compromised since Tuesday.
Nine out of 51 of the Stopped Vehicle Detection (SVD) radar posts that detect broken-down vehicles on the 18-mile stretch of London’s orbital motorway between junctions 23 and 27 are understood to be out of action.
It is possible to take many days to fix the blind spots caused by one out of six broken posts.
National Highways managers said traffic officers were planning to patrol the roads ‘for the next few days’.
Vital smart motorway safety technology has broken down on one of the country’s busiest stretches of road – sparking fears for drivers’ lives. A crash on a smart highway in 2019.
Pulvinder Dhillon (68), was killed in an accident after her car, in which she was riding, broke down along a stretch of M4 near Reading.
Claire Mercer, 45, who started the campaign group Smart Motorways Kill after her husband Jason was killed on a stretch on the M1, said: ‘When the tech is failing so widely, it massively increases the chance of a cataclysmic accident’
SVD is supposed to help alert officers to vehicles marooned in live traffic, which happens on ‘all lane running’ smart motorways as their hard shoulders are permanently removed.
This revelation comes four days after the Mail reported that SVD was not working for nearly a week. Pulvinder Dalton, 68, also died in a collision after her car, in which she was a passenger, crashed on a smart section of the M4 in Reading.
This newspaper first revealed a raft of lethal problems with smart motorways – including radar system failures – in an investigation six months ago.
Last night politicians and families of victims killed on the ‘death trap’ roads called for an end to the ‘fatal’ scheme.
Labour’s transport spokesman Louise Haigh said: ‘It is horrifying that safety-critical technology is still not working and more lives are being put at risk. This botched roll-out has cost lives and lessons are still not being learnt’
Labour’s transport spokesman Louise Haigh said: ‘It is horrifying that safety-critical technology is still not working and more lives are being put at risk. This botched roll-out has cost lives and lessons are still not being learnt.’
All South Mimms Control Room staff were notified by a National Highways manager on Tuesday afternoon that SVD is not available on the M25 between Hertfordshire, Essex.
‘We are currently experiencing some faults with SVD radar heads on the M25 J23 [for A1(M)]J27 [for M11] across a few sites,’ he said.
He urged the control room to help by increasing ‘virtual patrolling’ of the roads through CCTV, adding: ‘I am authorising the use of overtime on every single shift.’
On Tuesday, a National Highways boss emailed South Mimms staff to inform them that SVD had been suspended from the M25 in Hertfordshire/Essex. Picture: The M25
Another technology failure hit the feature of the online system used by control room staff which sends a banner alert when there is a new incident report, with the manager telling staff it was ‘not helping’ the situation.
The boss sent another email on Wednesday asking staff to report every SVD failure, writing: ‘I have seen and had over the last few days many complaints about SVD but it would seem many of these are not being reported.’
Staff said they don’t have time to report every incident as they are so frequent and they do not see improvements when they do.
Claire Mercer, 45, who started the campaign group Smart Motorways Kill after her husband Jason was killed on a stretch on the M1, said: ‘When the tech is failing so widely, it massively increases the chance of a cataclysmic accident.’
Duncan Smith, of National Highways, said: ‘The vast majority of SVD units, signs and signals and CCTV remain in operation and we have deployed extra traffic officer patrols. We are working to repair the faulty units as a priority.’