Sheffield widow demands government scraps smart motorways

Smart motorways are stretches of road where technology is used to try to regulate traffic flow and ease congestion.

There are currently 193 miles of what is called “all-lane-running” motorway – this means the hard shoulder has been permanently removed to provide an extra lane.

Across all smart motorways, radar and cameras are supposed to spot broken-down vehicles, and warning signs are then supposed to close affected lanes.

However, in April, figures obtained by Panorama revealed hundreds of incidents when crucial safety equipment was out of action.

National Highways’ latest figures suggest that if you break down on a smart motorway without a hard shoulder you are three times more likely to be killed or seriously injured than on one with a hard shoulder.

Mrs Mercer also told the BBC that although the government has said it will not be building more smart motorways, roadworks are ongoing to finish ones that were in the planning stage when the announcement was made 18 months ago.

In response to the Department of Transport’s statement to the BBC, Mrs Mercer said she has heard the “platitudes” and the phrase “in due course” for five years but “nothing meaningful” has been done.

Mrs Mercer also wrote in her letter that her husband and Mr Murgeanu were “smashed to bits” across four lanes of a motorway because “we now have roads that don’t allow for physics”.

She said her husband’s body was on the motorway for eight hours because a coroner could not access the scene.

It also took four hours for emergency services to inform Mrs Mercer about his death because vehicles and possessions had been so flung “so far and wide” that identification had been “hindered”.