BREAKING: 'Lives put at risk' after smart motorway staff lost control of signs for nearly two hours
Key safety technology failed on motorways across Greater Manchester and the north west on a busy Saturday afternoon, it's been revealed. A whistleblower claimed motorists' lives were put at risk as a result, but National Highways bosses said 'well-rehearsed procedures' were put in place and no emergency incidents were reported during the outage.
The second issue was reported just after rush-hour on Monday of this week, between junctions 18 and 19 of the M6, Middlewich and Holmes Chapel to the M56 motorway. National Highways said the so-called SVD technology enables warning signs on motorways to be quickly set, including red-coloured 'X' signals to close lanes. Speed limits can also be adjusted and displayed on signs.
"Power was restored by Electricity North West at 12 noon. The outage didn't affect any other part of our road network. There were no reported incidents during this time. During the outage we took additional measures, including increased patrolling by our traffic officers. We were also able to carry out active monitoring of CCTV using an alternative system from our Regional Operations Centre.
National Highways says on its website SVD technology is used to detect stationary vehicles. All motorways where hard shoulders have been permanently converted to a live lane have the radar-based technology in place, which works to alert motorists to dangers ahead.
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