"And this government have put much more money into infrastructure than you might expect given their ideology... And often in less sexy areas like rail electrification, smart motorways etc."
On what basis? They've scaled down HS2 and the Northern Rail Plan. Smart motorways is purely a way to avoid expensive, complicated, often necessary road widening with an unsafe technological solution. A lot of the safety issues of smart motorways has also been due to cutting costs - less frequent emergency refuge areas, less cameras than are needed to detect accidents. Now the press has caught up to them they have stopped rolling them out entirely.
Its more that I am surprised they started these projects in the first place.
I agree that smart motorways are less safe, and there are better ways to reduce demand (like road pricing). Having said that motorways are still very safe compared to other roads, even after being made "smart". I think a modest reduction in safety is an acceptable price to pay if billions can be saved. Invest that money in reducing death from emissions, pedestrian safety, or even our far less safe A road network.
You are correct, you much more likely to be killed on a regauar A road. My comment was really about the attitude of drivers rather than the statistical/actual risk.
On what basis? They've scaled down HS2 and the Northern Rail Plan. Smart motorways is purely a way to avoid expensive, complicated, often necessary road widening with an unsafe technological solution. A lot of the safety issues of smart motorways has also been due to cutting costs - less frequent emergency refuge areas, less cameras than are needed to detect accidents. Now the press has caught up to them they have stopped rolling them out entirely.