Sir, I was intrigued to note the high proportion of heavy goods vehicles in your picture of a congested motorway on the front page (Aug 31). If even half of that freight were carried by rail then our roads would be less congested, subject to less wear and tear and safer. Did I hear something about an integrated transport policy?
It seems clear that using the hard shoulder as an extra lane for moving traffic will increase risk, and make access more difficult for emergency vehicles. This risk can only be mitigated by slowing significantly the traffic in all lanes of that section of motorway.
CHARLES WEST
Church Stretton, Shropshire
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Sir, The Highways Agency’s quest for cheap solutions to motorway congestion has led to it making the novel suggestion in Yorkshire that four lanes can be squeezed into the land originally bought for a three-lane carriageway 40 years ago. This proposal, made in all seriousness and worked up in some detail, includes the eye-watering concept of the outer edge of the fast lane being less that one metre from a concrete wall sited in the much-reduced central reservation. This unwise concept abandons years of Highways Agency standards of design and is probably unique. Where will the mandarins of Marsham Street be when the corporate manslaughter charges for road deaths duly appear in the future, as they have already for our railways?
DAVID MYLES
Chesterfield, Derbyshire
Sir, I am a recently retired traffic policeman who served in excess of 38 years, 35 of them policing the M3 in Hampshire. I find the concept of using the hard shoulder for general use totally alien, even with a speed limit which not everybody will keep.
If a crash occurs on a busy motorway, police and Highways Agency emergency vehicles will no doubt be able to push their way through the stationary traffic eventually. But how is an ambulance and much less a fire engine expected to access the scene? This is a poorly thought-through remedy by somebody seated at a desk in Whitehall, and it smacks of expediency.
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IAN THOMPSON
Lychpit, Basingstoke
Sir, Surely they could build ten-lane superhighways and it would make absolutely no difference to congestion — people will still refuse to use any lane other than the two closest to the central reservation.
Until people stop dawdling along at 50mph in the middle lane of an empty motorway (effectively taking the left lane out of use), they will make the congestion problem worse as people queue up to pass them. Perhaps they do not realise that HGVs are not allowed to go into the right-hand lane in order to pass them. We could, of course, do it US style and allow passing on both sides.
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ALASTAIR CRAWFORD
Largs, Ayrshire
Sir, While I support the need for a trial of the hard shoulder as an additional running line at peak times, we should be careful not to assume its immediate and universal applicability. Junctions 3a to 7 of the M42 northbound were chosen deliberately as a trial site. The sections between junctions are relatively long; traffic flow analysis suggested that a large percentage of vehicles entered and left the motorway at successive junctions and there are fewer interruptions of the hard shoulder itself by bridges or footpaths. With a lower speed limit in place during hard-shoulder running, it is likely that we will see more predictable journey times here, as has been the case with the M25 variable speed limit section.
In the longer term, road pricing is likely to be a better solution. However, here too we must ensure that it does not encourage drivers to divert to less safe routes such as rural roads or less safe times such as the early morning. The need for a national debate about safety, the environment and transport becomes ever more pressing.
ROBERT GIFFORD
Executive Director,
Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety