Coroner blames Smart motorways

Private Eye piece re: the loss of the motorway hard shoulder.  (Or the ripped out / never installed in the first place protected cycle lane.)

“There’s no chief inspector of roads. Nor is there a roads equivalent of the air, rail and marine accident investigation bodies”  The article recounts for contrast  how Network Rail didn’t replace some post and wire fencing, (supposedly) leading to a cteenager getting onto the tracks and being injured – NR were fined for this.

“A senior Coroner said last month she would consider referring a smart-motorway death to the CPS” and recounting that the Sheffield Coroner had written to Grant Shapps asking for a review of of smart motorways.”

A few thoughts for a cold Sunday:

• ‘We must use every square foot of roadspace  – none can go to waste’
• The apparent regulatory gap is a “turn a blind eye” – overall responsibility has nowhere to land, the whole thing in effect a massive game of Chance
• what would the road accident investigation branch focus on: would it say “ooo, that’s a dangerous road”, would it focus on  nudging “driver behaviour”, or would it call it and “say large numbers of people are just not fit to drive a motor vehicle”?