Drivers left as 'sitting ducks' after smart motorway safety system crashes across England

A smart motorway safety system failed across much of England on Wednesday (February 22), National Highways has admitted.

The Dynac system – which includes signs, signals and stopped vehicle detection technology – stopped working at around 8.30am on Wednesday. The fault occurred across the whole of England’s smart motorway network except in the East and South East and wasn't resolved until approximately 10.30am.

It comes less than two weeks after National Highways said it 'temporarily lost the ability' to set motorway signs and signals in Greater Manchester. The incident occurred at 12.35pm on Saturday, February 11, revealing an 'issue with roadside technology' that lasted short of two hours. The outage also affected the motorway network in Yorkshire and the North East, the Midlands and the South West.

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AA president Edmund King claimed drivers in vehicles that had broken down in live lanes during Wednesday's outage were “sitting ducks” during that period. The cause of the problem is under investigation.

There have been long-standing safety fears following fatal incidents in which vehicles stopped in live lanes on smart motorways without a hard shoulder were hit from behind. National Highways operational control director Andrew Page-Dove said: “We are urgently investigating an unplanned outage of our traffic management system that took place this morning.

“Engineers worked hard to get the system back online as soon as possible and we apologise for any inconvenience caused. We have well-rehearsed procedures to deal with issues which arise. We rapidly took steps to help ensure the safety of road users such