{"id":66434,"date":"2022-10-28T08:43:03","date_gmt":"2022-10-28T08:43:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tahrir2day.com\/news\/2022\/10\/28\/national-highways-apologises-over-smart-motorway-sign-failure\/"},"modified":"2022-10-28T08:43:03","modified_gmt":"2022-10-28T08:43:03","slug":"national-highways-apologises-over-smart-motorway-sign-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tahrir2day.com\/news\/2022\/10\/28\/national-highways-apologises-over-smart-motorway-sign-failure\/","title":{"rendered":"National Highways apologises over smart motorway sign failure"},"content":{"rendered":"
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National Highways has apologized after “unexpected problems” caused motorists to see random lane closure signs on sections of England’s smart motorway.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Problems have been reported by drivers on the M6, M1 and A1(M), with “mile after mile” of lane closure warnings and “illegible” overhead signs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Speed \u200b\u200blimits have been introduced on some routes and additional traffic controls have been introduced.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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National Highways’ Andrew Page-Dove said: “We apologize for any inconvenience.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The agency said the problems began around 2:30pm BST on Wednesday and lasted until almost midnight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Smart highways use technology to regulate the flow of traffic with signs notifying motorists of speed limits and lane closures.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Some use the hard shoulder as an extra lane, but critics claim this has resulted in road deaths.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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On social media, drivers complained about portal signs with two different speed limits and false lane closures, while others were so bright they “obstructed night vision.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Page-Dove said: \u201cAs with any technology, failures do occasionally occur and as such we have well-established procedures to deal with any problems that arise.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe have taken additional measures to limit the impact on drivers or traffic flow, including additional traffic officer patrols and virtual CCTV patrols.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“We have decided to reset the systems to ensure that any bugs are fixed as soon as possible.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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At the end of 2020 there were 369 miles of smart motorways in England, including 168 miles without hard shoulders.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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According to government figures from the BBC Panorama in 2020, 38 people were killed on smart highways between 2014 and 2019.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Rotherham Labor MP Sarah Champion said she had repeatedly told the Government that smart highways were “fundamentally unsafe”. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Jason Mercer, a member of Ms Champion, was killed in an accident on a stretch of the M1 smart motorway near Sheffield in June 2019.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“No amount of technology can mitigate the risk of removing huge sections of hard shoulder,” said Ms. Champion.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe thought that security technology is unreliable chills me, which further increases the inherent risks. I am appalled that public safety could be endangered by National Highways’ failure to keep safety installations operational and have raised this repeatedly with successive Ministers.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Follow BBC Yorkshire on <\/i>Facebook, <\/i>Twitter<\/a> and <\/i>Instagram. Submit your story ideas to <\/i>yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n