Extra emergency areas to be installed on the M5

Drivers will be able to pull over at emergency areas on the M5

Drivers will be able to stop at new emergency areas on a smart motorway in Worcestershire.

Extra places for drivers to pull over will be placed on the M5 junction 4a and 6 between Bromsgrove and Worcester.

The project is part of a £900m investment aimed at improving the motorway network by 2025.

The emergency areas are among 150 such spots announced by National Highways, which has said the move is about its "highest priority", safety.

National Highways said while a minority of crashes involved pulled-over vehicles, there was a higher risk of such incidents on motorways without a permanent hard shoulder.

Critics of smart motorways, which partly manage traffic by converting the hard shoulder into a live lane, claim they have led to road deaths.

National Highways figures show smart motorways without a hard shoulder are three times more dangerous to break down on, when compared with those that keep an emergency lane.

In April, the Government announced the cancellation of planned projects to build all-lane-running smart motorways.

'Improve performance'

"We have completed key upgrades to improve the performance of technology to detect stopped vehicles and today we have set out the next sections of motorway to benefit from the programme to install more than 150 extra emergency areas to give drivers added reassurance," said National Highways chief executive, Nick Harris.

Edmund King, president of the AA motoring group, welcomed the additional safety measures but called for hard shoulders to be reinstated on all motorways.