A National Highways traffic officer has claimed smart motorways have been "an appalling failure from day one" in a poignant letter to Nottinghamshire Live. They have called for them to be abolished and the hard shoulder reinstated, while describing them as an "awful place to work on".
A smart motorway is a section of a motorway that uses traffic management methods to increase capacity and reduce congestion in particularly busy areas. These methods include using the hard shoulder as a running lane and variable speed limits to control the flow of traffic.
It is estimated however that 79 people in total have been killed on these stretches of the motorway. The government has cancelled all plans for new smart motorways, in recognition of the lack of public confidence felt by drivers.
