A woman who lost her husband in a crash on a smart motorway said that "thousands are being endangered" on the controversial roads while the government has paused any further developments. Claire Mercer, whose husband Jason was killed on a stretch of the M1 with no hard shoulder in 2019, has accused Rishi Sunak of breaking his promise to put an end to smart motorways.
It comes as the newly-appointed Transport Secretary Mark Harper was confronted over the topic in a an interview on LBC. Asked if he is a 'fan of smart motorways', he added: "You'll know my predecessor-but-one [Grant Shapps] paused rolling out any new smart motorways until the department could gather evidence over a significant period of time about their operation, about their safety record - and that position remains the case.'"
He added: "Evidence will be gathered and then we will be able to make decisions in due course about whether or not we roll out any more of these motorways. But we are not rolling out any more at the moment. We are collecting evidence from these that already exist. And I think that is a sensible position."
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This summer, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak vowed he would ban new smart motorways from being created and branded them as "unsafe". Ms Mercer, who founded Smart Motorways Kill and has been campaigning for the abolition of the roads, has accused the prime minister of "going round and round over what he promised".
Smart motorways were first introduced in the UK in 2014 by Highways England. They typically use technology to manage the flow of traffic, and the hard shoulder area can be used as an extra lane. This means motorists have to rely on emergency refuge areas. Speed limits can also be varied according to the flow of traffic. In 2006, then Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly said: "People get from their front door to their place of work in a much more reliable time frame.
"The safety fears that some people have haven't materialised at all and, not only that, it's good for the economy and the environment too."
However, since their introduction there have been at least 38 deaths on smart motorways.
Alexandru Murgeanu, 22, and Jason Mercer, 44, had been swapping insurance details following a minor collision on the M1 in 2019 when they were struck by a lorry. It happened on a section of road where the hard shoulder was used for traffic - on a so-called smart motorway.
Remembering the tragedy, Ms Mercer added: "It happened three years ago and it still does not feel real to me. It does not feel right.
"We have got this group, it is called the Broken Hearts group, and this group is just getting bigger and bigger. It just keeps happening and thousands are being endangered every day."
She went on and said: "I sometimes get very graphic because I want people to really understand this. In Jason and Alexandru's case, and other people's because there is always a lorry - you have to deal with the devastation of what a truck travelling at 60 miles an hour does when it impacts a body, not a car."
She has urged people to write to their MP in a joint effort to put an end to the roll-out. She added: "I am just very disappointed and I think it is disgusting. We do not want this network, they are killing people, and questions need to be answered.
"Liz Truss said before she got elected that she would get rid of smart motorways because she knew we hated them, then she backtracked. So next on the same thing, and now the Transport Minister is just following the lead, who is now Rishi Sunak, saying he is not going to get rid of the smart motorways."
The heartbroken woman added: "It is three years down the road now, but it is still happening to other people. In Alexandru's case, this broke his sister - she returned to Romania because she could not live here anymore. She is not responsible.
Andreea Murgeanu, who lost her brother Alexandru in the 2019 M1 crash, also believes that smart motorways need scrapping altogether. She moved to Mansfield from Romania in 2014, and, two years later, she asked her brother Alexandru to come and live with her and her boyfriend.
But she left to return to Romania following the loss of her brother.
Speaking in Romanian to Nottinghamshire Live, Andreea Murgeanu said she does not want to ‘feel like my brother died in vain’. She said: “It has been three years and we slowly made peace with the idea that nothing will bring him back. But we wanted something to change for the better.
“That was the whole point. That’s why there were so many protests against smart motorways, to prevent other people from dying.”
The mum of two moved back to her home country after the tragedy. She said: “I do not want to feel like my brother died in vain. I have never blamed anyone for my loss. But we wanted something to change and I am just really disappointed and heartbroken.
“We are now back to where we were when it happened. I just feel like it is a shame, and Claire deserves more because she worked so hard and believed in her cause.”
A Government spokesperson said: “Safety on our roads remains an absolute priority. We have paused the rollout of smart motorways not already in construction, and we will set out next steps in due course.”
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