HUDDERSFIELD-based road safety charity Brake has attacked Government plans to use hard shoulders as extra motorway lanes.
The Government is expected to announce its controversial plans for easing motorway congestion soon.
Plans include allowing drivers to use on hard shoulders, creating an extra lane.
A pilot scheme is already operating on the M42 in the Midlands and it has been widely viewed as a success.
Ministers hope to expand the scheme to almost 2,000 miles of motorway around the country.
But the plans have provoked outrage from road safety campaigners, who believe it will give drivers no refuge if they need to take evasive action to avoid accidents.
They say it will also prevent emergency services getting to crash scenes.
Currently, emergency vehicles use the hard shoulder to get to scenes quickly, especially if there is heavy traffic in the main motorway carriageways.
Officials plan to allay this fear with ‘safe haven’ areas and gantries with electronic displays warning of accidents.
But Brake says these measures do not go far enough.
Cathy Keeler, its head of campaigns, said: “In a traffic jam paramedics can now use the hard shoulder to reach crash sites in the shortest possible time.
“If all lanes, including the hard shoulder, are blocked, how will they get through? A few minutes’ delay can make the difference between life and death.’’
