''It's an emotional debate": Smart motorways boss insists they are 'safest in world'

The country’s highways boss has responded to warnings from his own staff about Greater Manchester’s Smart Motorways - insisting ‘they’re the safest roads in Europe, if not the world’.

Duncan Smith, executive director of operations at National Highways, spoke to the Manchester Evening News following a series of complaints from traffic officers around faulty signs, signals, CCTV, stranded drivers, and issues around staffing levels which they claimed were impacting driver safety on the M62 Junctions 10-12, where the hard shoulder works as a live lane.

But Mr Smith insisted the debate around the safety of the high-tech roads, which are equipped with electronic signals, signs, radars, speed and vehicle counters and CCTV, was an ‘emotional’ one, with the statistics proving there are in fact less accidents on smart motorways than on conventional roads.

READ MORE: 'We're pulling our hair out': Why even the traffic officers who patrol smart motorways think they are 'unsafe'

He said: "We believe that they are the safest roads, they are our safest roads and all our roads are the safest in Europe, if not the world. We know the statistics bear that out but we also know that there is a perception of safety for some people who use it."

He added: “We are trying to be very open about how proud we are about how we operate the network, the technology that underpins it, the people who underpin it.

“This is an emotional dispute. The statistics say smart motorways are safer than the roads they have replaced. That’s why we need to listen to road users and I need to listen to my colleagues and help them understand the features that are there to make them safer. One of the reasons I was keen to do this is that actually we’ve got a great