Major warning to drivers ahead of engineering work on motorways this weekend

AN outage of warning signs on England’s smart motorways could put drivers at risk this weekend.

Overhead signs designed to protect stranded drivers will be out of action across the motorway network as part of a planned outage.

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The Dynac technology, which allows motorways to function without hard shoulders by closing lanes electronically, will be rebooted for “essential maintenance”.

The system – dubbed Die Now by workers after a series of computer crashes – will be out of action on Saturday night until Sunday morning.

Whistleblowers at National Highways have warned that broken-down motorists could be left as “sitting ducks”.

The outage will affect sections of motorway across Yorkshire, the North East, North West, Midlands and South West.

The South East and East will be unaffected by the engineering work.

National Highways insisted the switch-off would last three hours but a worker said: “Saturday night will be Russian Roulette for motorway drivers.

“I work on the frontline and my colleagues and I are extremely worried that we can’t keep people safe.

“If someone breaks down while this technology is switched off, we are not able to display electronic signs warning drivers that there’s a stationary vehicle in a live lane.

“There will be no control of signs and signals on every motorway and smart motorway.

“And if the weather is bad, God help each and every driver.”
If a car breaks down, the gantries will show a red X, signalling that the lane is closed.

However, the tech has been hit by a string of system failures.
In 2021, it emerged that signals across the M1, M4, M5 and M62 could not be changed due to a series of crashes on the software.

Its failure meant speed limits could not be introduced or changed and lanes could not be closed.

A National Highways spokesman confirmed: “We have engineering work planned overnight on Saturday 28 January, which will involve a temporary outage of our traffic management system lasting three hours.

“We take steps to limit any impact on drivers by carrying out the work overnight and at the weekend when traffic levels are at their lightest, with increased patrolling by our traffic officers, pre-positioned vehicle recovery and active monitoring of CCTV.”

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