Smart motorways Sheffield: Widow hits out at government for “arrogantly ignoring” demand for hard shoulder

Smart Motorways Kill says the government is “putting thousands of lives at risk”, and will take it to court should they not reinstate the hard shoulder.

Claire Mercer, aged 44, set up the group with others after her husband Jason was killed on an All Lanes Running (ALR) smart motorway near Sheffield.

She said: “As time passes, the pain of losing Jason doesn’t ease but more information about the lack of safety on ALRs continues to come to light.

“For several years there’s been too many stories of how people have been killed or seriously injured on these roads and stories of families being torn apart.”

Jason, aged 44, of Broom, Rotherham, and Alexandru Murgreanu, 22, of Mansfield, were killed in June 2019 on an ALR near Meadowhall.

After being involved in a minor collision on a northbound stretch of the M1, the pair pulled over to the roadside as far as possible.

The lane was not closed to traffic, and they were struck down by a lorry.

An inquest into their deaths found that Jason, the driver, was found to be not at fault, and was placed at risk of serious injury or death by having to stop. 

The coroner said there was an “obvious and foreseeable risk posed by the absence of a hard shoulder on smart motorways.”

Claire added: “The £900 billion saved by scrapping future ALR schemes more than pays for the restoration of hard shoulders to provide motorway users with the safest possible environment - putting people first.

“I believe that for many years, the government continued to remove hard shoulders from motorways while arrogantly ignoring the overwhelming public view that motorways without hard shoulders are dangerous.”

Jason’s family want the controversial roads to be turned into controlled motorways – roads which have three or more lanes with variable speed limits, but retain a traditional hard shoulder.

Rishi Sunak agreed to abandon plans to develop more smart motorways in April 2023, saying that people would be able to drive “with full confidence that the roads they drive on are safe”.

Lawyers at Irwin Mitchell, representing Claire, wrote to the government and National Highways in October calling for the reinstatement of the hard shoulder on smart motorways, or face a potential judicial review in the High Court.

The government and National Highways took more than two months to reply to the letter, and said they expect to provide a final response by the end of April 2024 – five months after their initial reply.

Claire said: “I’m not going to stand for these stalling tactics which show a lack of common decency and continue to put thousands of lives at risk.

“I won’t rest until the hard shoulder has returned. The government and National Highways need to pull their fingers out and treat this request with the seriousness it deserves. Otherwise, if it means legal action, then that’s something I’m prepared to do.”