What type of multi-lane roads are the safest? It’s an interesting question considering the headlines and column space taken up by ‘smart’ motorways in recent months. It has led to a pause in the creation of new all lane running motorways until a full investigation has delivered its conclusions.

Clever thinking?

Smart motorways have gradually been implemented across the UK in recent years, with three main types: controlled motorways, dynamic hard shoulder motorways and, more recently, all-lane running motorways(ALR).

Insurers GoShorty have looked into various motorway schemes to see which are the safest, least congested and largest, as well as public opinion on these schemes via a YouGov survey.

Safest types of motorway and multi-lane road

Accidents

Casualties

Rank

Road Type

Total Number of Miles

Total

Per Mile of Road

Total

Per Mile of Road

1

A-Road

29,500

27,256

0.9

41,869

1.4

2

ALR

168

1,588

9.5

2,495

14.9

3

Conventional

1,540

16,987

11.0

27,680

18.0

4

DHS

64

1,524

24.0

2,567

40.4

5

Controlled

141

3,578

25.5

5,818

41.4

Alphabet soup

The first safest was A-Roads. A-roads are rather similar to conventional motorways, in that they also feature two or three lanes with a flat 70 MPH national speed limit. According to the UK Government, there are 29,500 miles of A-road in the UK. And during 2015-2020 A-roads had 0.9 accidents per mile of road, leading to 1.4 casualties per mile, making it the safest among multi-lane roads and motorways in the UK.

The second least amount of casualties were on All-lane running (ALR). Many DHS (Dynamic Hard Shoulder) schemes were in the process of being converted to ALR schemes, before being paused by National Highways due to safety concerns. A big leap up from A-roads, ALR motorways had 9.5 accidents per miles of road between 2015-2020 and 14.9 casualties.

Third are Conventional motorways. Conventional motorways typically feature just three lanes and don’t often have variable speed limits, as well as fewer speed cameras. According to National Highways, there are 1,540 miles of conventional motorway in the UK and during 2015-2020 there were 11 accidents per mile on such roads, with 18 casualties per mile as consequence.

Further Insights

  • Almost three in five people were in opposition to the implementation of the newest smart motorway, ALR, with just one in four in support of them and one in five responding that they didn’t know.

  • Overwhelming almost two-thirds of people viewed ALR roads as less safe than motorways with hard shoulders.

  • The longest stretch of smart motorway in the UK is the M25 junction 16-23 which measures 22.1 miles long, which is a controlled motorway and therefore one of the older types, with ALRs being the newest.

 

Read the full research here: https://goshorty.co.uk/blog/smart-motorways/