Witnesses
Jim O'Sullivan,
Chief Executive, Highways England;
Elliot Shaw, Executive Director of Strategy and
Planning, Highways England; and Mike
Wilson, Chief Highways Engineer, Highways England.
: In relation to one
stretch of the M1 motorway, South Yorkshire Police have deployed
extra patrols in the all-lane running stretch. Does this indicate
that you do not have enough traffic officers to monitor that?
There is an interesting quote from Edmund King of the
AA. Heremarked that the situation on the M1 in South Yorkshire
“means the police know the Highways England Scheme is
dangerous”—that is fairly damning—“but have to increase resources
to pick up the pieces.” The police have to increase
their resources to pick up the pieces after a design issue on a
stretch of motorway that potentially is causing
concern. I do not know the man, but Edmund King of the AA must be
a recognised figure.
Jim O'Sullivan: I know Edmund quite well;
he is a close colleague. We serve together on the
DFT’s motorist forum,
and that opinion would be consistent with opinions he has
expressed on smart motorways in general.
We have already mentioned in this session that we have seen
a cluster of accidents in that section of the M1. We have
analysed them. We are satisfied with the design of the smart
motorway in that area. A cluster like that is unusual but not
unheard of. We have had clusters of accidents like that on other
motorways that are not smart
motorways, with similar numbers of
fatalities.
We are always interested in a cluster of accidents, but we are a
data-led organisation. We now have nine of these schemes and 300
miles of them. It is tragic and upsetting, but it is not entirely
unreasonable or unheard of that we would have a cluster.
There are enough of these schemes now that we
would see a cluster of accidents similar to what we see
in other parts of our motorway network...
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