M25 named most dangerous motorway as smart motorways branded a ‘waste of money’
Mon, 23 Mar 2026
The M25 tops the list of the most dangerous motorways in England and Wales, with a collision every 1.3 miles of road.
With almost 136,000 vehicles travelling at an average speed of over 50mph, the M25 has with an average delay of nearly 20 seconds per vehicle per mile as a result of collisions.
This gives it the worst overall safety score of the worst five motorways in England and Wales, says Blackcircles.
Drivers are twice as likely to have a crash on the M25 than they are on an average motorway drive in England and Wales.
The M32 is the second-worst motorway, followed by the M60, M27 and M1 — and with all of them featuring smart motorway sections, Blackcircles is now branding the smart motorway initiative a waste of money.
Not only do they feature worsening traffic flow, there are also ever-growing safety concerns surrounding the use of the hard shoulder as a running lane, says Blackcircles’ James Harding.
“When the hard shoulder is used as a lane, a broken down vehicle has to rely on the refuge area along the motorway. However, these are often spaced a mile apart, making it difficult for drivers to pull over to get out of the way.
“Although smart motorway detection technology is designed to identify stopped vehicles, reports suggest it can take an average of 17 minutes for a breakdown to be detected — and once identified, it can take a further three minutes to close the lane containing the stopped vehicle.”
The roads in the dangerous motorways top five have been prioritised for smart motorway sections due to being the busiest in the UK, added Harding.
“However, given that these systems are intended to improve traffic management and safety, we would expect to see clearer evidence that they are reducing collision rates rather than continued high numbers of incidents per kilometre.”
At the other end of the rankings, the M50 emerged as the safest motorway in England and Wales, followed by the M54, M69, M180 and M45. Many of these have no smart motorway features.
The research also found that Scottish motorways rank as much safer than those in England and Wales. Drivers are twice as likely to have a collision on an English or Welsh motorway than a Scottish one.
