Motorists fear for safety over motorway lighting

UK motoring groups have expressed concern over plans to turn off motorway lighting above one of Britain’s busiest stretches of motorway.

The Highways Agency has unveiled plans to switch off motorway lighting between midnight and 5am on the M1 between junction 10 at Luton and junction 13 at Milton Keynes.

This is just one part of the UK’s busy motorway network that looks set to be plunged into darkness due to the Department for Transport’s cost-cutting support to the Government’s austerity plan.

At present the Highways Agency believes under half the 1,800 miles of motorway in England are lit, with that number set to decline in the coming months.

This particular 15-mile stretch of motorway between Luton and Milton Keynes is set to become a ‘managed motorway’ with variable speed limits to deal with traffic congestion. Drivers will also be encouraged to use the hard shoulder at busy times of the day.

A spokesman for road safety charity, Brake has expressed concerns with the motorway lighting move: "Although there are fewer crashes on our motorways per mile travelled due to the way these roads are engineered, when crashes do happen on these roads they are much more likely to involve multiple deaths and serious injuries because of the high speeds involved.

"Road casualties are not only catastrophic for the families involved, but a huge economic burden, so if there is a safety implication of turning lights off it could turn out to be a false economy as well as a desperately inhumane experiment."

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Drivers keen to see motorway limit raised to 80mph

The latest survey by the Institute of Advanced Motoring (IAM) has revealed almost three-quarters of Britain’s drivers are keen to see the speed limit on UK motorways raised to 80mph from the existing 70mph limit.

Over 70 per cent of the 2,000-plus motorists surveyed believed they would be far more likely to stick to the speed limit if it was raised to 80mph.

As a result of the existing speed limit almost two-thirds of respondents admitted to driving above 70mph when traffic is free-flowing on motorways, while a fifth even confessed to driving 80mph or faster.

Neil Greig, director of policy and research at IAM, said: “Even though motorways are the safest roads, increasing the motorway speed limit is a controversial subject. This is why we want to see a trial to test its impact on road safety, fuel consumption and driver behaviour.

“A new 80 miles per hour limit would need to be properly enforced to make sure that it does not become an excuse to drive at 90.”

A supporting study by the Department for Transport highlighted that over half (52 per cent) of vehicles break the 70mph limit in free-flowing motorway traffic. There is nothing to suggest that this attitude would change if the speed limit was raised to 80mph.

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