Letter: Smart motorways are many times safer to travel on and journeys are much shorter

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How strange that of all the ten people condemning smart motorways, none of them mentioned the A61 in Chesterfield, the A617 from Horns Bridge to the M1, or indeed any of the many hundreds of miles of 70mph dual carriageways we tolerate in this country, none of which has a hard shoulder. Take the A617[2], for instance. It has just two laybys in each direction, no street lighting and is tortuous with stretches of limited visibility.

Break down on here and you are stuck in a 70mph lane with no nearby phones, no camera supervision, no radar sensors.Yet that is what Smart motorways do have, which is why they are many times safer to travel on, a statistical fact which defies the hysteria shown by your anonymous, probably inexperienced drivers.The truth is that the introduction of smart technology and a fourth running lane on the M1 has made stop-start shuttling a thing of the past, hold-ups due to congestion are rare.Journey times are shorter and much more relaxed.But journalists do like to follow the hysteria line… just as on social media.Safe driving is about much more than a few hysterical soundbites. David France Author of ‘An Epidemic Of Fatalities’, consultation paper for Secretary of State for Transport, 2013

“Smart motorways….are many times safer to travel on”.

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References

1. ^ Visit Shots! now (www.shotstv.com)
2. ^ A617 (www.derbyshiretimes.co.uk)