'I won't stop till we get the hard shoulders back'

The widow of a man who was killed on a section of smart motorway has asked the government for them to be scrapped completely as the lack of hard shoulder leads to "scenes of utter carnage".

Claire Mercer's husband Jason, 44, and Alexandru Murgeanu, 22, were hit by a lorry on the M1 near Sheffield in 2019 after a "minor bump" as there was nowhere for them to stand in safety while waiting for help.

Mrs Mercer has directly appealed to transport secretary Heidi Alexander and said smart motorways have insufficient room for passengers to get out of their cars.

The Department for Transport has said it would not roll out any new smart motorways and pledged to deliver a "comprehensive new Road Safety Strategy".

A spokesperson also said: "It will be the first in over a decade - to reduce tragic deaths and injuries on our roads and we will share more details in due course.

"The Secretary of State takes the safety of all our roads extremely seriously and our thoughts remain with Ms Mercer."

Mrs Mercer told the BBC: "I said to Heidi Alexander, this is on your watch now and the buck stops with you."

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".

In her letter Mrs Mercer also wrote: "I have control room operators emailing me saying they dread going on shift because they have to sit, watching screens, knowing that they are powerless to help motorists that become stranded on these dangerous roads and all they can do is sit there and watch them get maimed or killed.

"One actually wrote that it's not unusual to see operators watching the screens in tears."

She said grief has "completely changed her as a person" and she is now disorganised, forgetful and often unwell.

However, she said she has no plans to give up campaigning.

Mrs Mercer added: "I'm not stopping.

"I'm not stopping until we've got the hard shoulder back on every single motorway."

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