Overview
- National Highways data for the 12 months to 11 May showed 947 reports of oncoming or wrong‑way vehicles on England’s motorways, up from 729 four years earlier and averaging about 18 reports a week.
- The figures are compiled from reports made to operations centres by police, traffic officers and the public and may include unconfirmed sightings, a National Highways spokesperson said.
- Recent fatal crashes have brought urgency to the issue, including a head-on collision on the M90 on 17 April that killed two men and an M6 crash in October in which a man in his 50s died.
- Experts and road-safety groups say common causes include driver impairment from drink, drugs or fatigue, navigation errors such as mistaking exits for entries, poor visibility at night, and rare deliberate wrong-way driving to avoid police.
- The RAC Foundation and the AA are urging engineering and tech fixes such as reconfigured junctions, slip‑road sensors, roadside warnings and in-vehicle alerts, while National Highways says every report triggers immediate protective actions like signals and speed reductions.