Finally, a government decision I can completely support – the decision to stop building ‘all-lane running’ smart motorways for five years while a comprehensive assessment is made on their safety.

About time.

Just in case you haven’t come across them, a smart motorway is a stretch of road where technology is used to regulate traffic flow with the aim of easing congestion.

There are three main types: Controlled, which have a permanent hard shoulder, but use technology such as variable speed limits to adjust traffic flows.

Dynamic smart motorways have a hard shoulder that can be opened up at peak times and used as an extra lane. When this happens, the speed limit is reduced to 60mph.

And by far the most dangerous are all-lane running smart motorways, where the hard shoulder has been permanently removed to provide an extra lane. There are emergency refuge areas provided at ‘regular’ intervals for cars that get into trouble.

All three types of smart motorways use overhead gantries to direct drivers. Variable speed limits are introduced to control traffic flow when there is congestion, or if there is a hazard ahead. These limits are controlled by speed cameras.

Don’t get me wrong, there are elements of smart motorways that work really well, both in terms of road safety and in controlling congestion. The ability to adjust the speed limit to manage traffic flow is to be applauded and generally works well.

But, and it’s a big but, there are elements of all-lane running smart motorways that are inherently dangerous and will remain dangerous until the necessary remedial safety work is carried out.

Last summer, I was on the M6 heading south through the ‘smart’ section when all the traffic in front of me started veering all over the road.

Fortunately it wasn’t too busy or there could have been a serious problem. A Mini had broken down and without a hard shoulder to pull on to had stopped as far over to the left as the driver could get.

Nevertheless, it meant most of the car was stationary in a live motorway lane, hence all the vehicles having to swerve out of its way.

There had been no warning. None of the overhead gantry signs had closed off the lane and the speed limit hadn’t been reduced.

It was, quite literally, an accident waiting to happen.

Incidents such as this have happened up and down the country, some with fatal results.

And now the government has accepted the findings of a House of Commons Transport Committee report published last year.

MPs said they were ‘not convinced’ that the benefits of all-lane running motorways were enough to justify the safety risks of permanently removing the hard shoulder.

The rollout of new stretches of all-lane running will now be paused for five years, in order to collect more information and make existing schemes safer.

Schemes that are already under way will still be completed, and existing stretches of all-lane running motorways will remain unchanged. However, £390m of public funds will be provided to upgrade safety on existing all-lane running smart motorways.

And that can’t come soon enough for me. The original concept of smart motorways involved sensors in the road surface to detect vehicle speed and flow, and automatically adjust the speed limit.

But to work safely, all smart motorways were supposed to be fitted with radar detection systems that could identify a stranded vehicle within seconds and automatically use the gantry signs to close the lane to traffic.

But many weren’t fitted with radar, meaning cars are often stranded for many, many minutes before being spotted.

And the concept of emergency refuges originally envisaged them being around 500 metres apart, giving a failing vehicle a reasonable chance of getting off the motorway and out of traffic.

On many of the newer sections of smart motorways, those refuges are 2,500 metres apart.

Now it looks as though the cash has finally been provided to make the vital upgrades so I suppose we must be thankful that the government has finally acted.

Better late than never, I suppose.