Motorists' body expresses concern about rise in crashes on newly upgraded smart motorways

摘要

Safety evaluations of recently completed smart motorways highlight a "concerning" rise in serious collisions after upgrade work was finished, according to motorists' body the RAC. Highways England recently published post opening project evaluation (Pope) reports for eight smart motorway schemes, following the stock take of smart motorway safety in March. In half of the cases, a rise in serious collisions was recorded in the first year after a motorway was upgraded. Highways England defines a serious collision as "one in which at least one person is seriously injured but no person (other than a confirmed suicide) is killed". But the number of fatal collisions fell on six of the eight motorways and remained at zero on one.