They are concerns that smart motorways are actually putting people at risk as those broken down motorists are not being noticed for up to an hour.
The new type of motorway is becoming more and more common place and largely involves replacing the hard shoulder with an extra lane.
They can be seen on sections of the M4 and M5 and also use traffic management methods, such as changing the speed limit to control the flow of traffic.
It is designed to minimise traffic as well as cost of constructing new lanes and the impact to the environment.
However there are now concerns that these smart motorways are putting those on the road at risk.
A new report has revealed that CCTV operators are taking on average 20minutes to notice a car has broken down or crashed and as a result closed the lane.
But the official target is three minutes. In one instance operators did not notice for over an hour.
It puts those stranded motorists are risk from passing vehicles until the lane is closed.
Radar technology to auto detect breakdowns is only used on small parts of the M25 in London, The Times has revealed.
A Highways England spokeswoman told The Times : "Our trials on the M25 have shown that a stopped vehicle detection system can be a valuable extra tool to help spot incidents more quickly, and the technology is being designed into all the smart motorway projects that we start constructing from next year."
