With the school holidays just around the corner how informed are motorists about smart motorways and how they work? Every year millions of motorists hit the road and heading for their holiday destinations, airports and sunnier climes. This will mean many motorists will drive on smart motorways for the first time.

With the above in mind the Highways Authority are issuing advice as to how to tackle this new found technology on the road.

Smart motorways are part of a government scheme – where the hard shoulder is used by vehicles as a running lane and the flow of traffic is controlled by variable speed limits – they are becoming increasingly commonplace throughout England.

Highways England has developed smart motorways to increase motorway capacity and reduce congestion in a way that minimises environmental impact, cost and time to construct by avoiding the need to build additional lanes. There are three types of scheme which are classed as smart motorways – controlled motorway, dynamic hard shoulder running and all lane running.

Designed to cut congestion and improve traffic journey times by using variable speed limits and making the hard shoulder available as an extra lane, smart motorways operate on stretches of the M1, M4/5, M6, M20, M25, M42/40 and M62.

It can be a daunting experience if you breakdown on a smart motorway so it is important that motorists know the facts and that help is at hand through the various breakdown agencies operating in the UK. The good news is that this doesn’t affect your car insurance policy if you damage your vehicle on one of these new smart motorways.