Smart motorways: Rollout should be paused over safety fears, campaigners and MPs say
The rollout of smart motorways should be suspended amid safety concerns, MPs and campaigners have said.
Government plans to remove the hard shoulder from all future smart motorways and use the lane for live traffic are “premature”, a report from Commons Transport Select Committee (TSC) has said.
Demonstrators carried 38 cardboard coffins to the Houses of Parliament today in protest over the Government’s motorway plan, which was first announced in March last year.
Each coffin represented one of the people officially listed as being killed on smart motorways between 2014 and 2019.
The TSC urged ministers to ‘consider alternative options for enhancing capacity’ on motorways
A smart motorway is a section of a motorway that uses traffic management methods to increase capacity.
One type is known as an “all-lane running” scheme, and permanently removes the hard shoulder and converts it into a lane for traffic. On this type of motorway, lane one (formerly the hard shoulder) should close if there is an accident – with a red X appearing above the lane.
However, there have been mounting concerns after several fatal accidents saw stationary vehicles being hit from behind.
Claire Mercer, whose husband, Jason, died on a smart motorway stretch of the M1 in June 2019, welcomed the recommendation the rollout be paused, adding: “That will give us more time to get into the High Court and get these banned anyway”.
Mr Mercer, 44, and Alexandru Murgeanu, 22, died near Sheffield when a lorry crashed into their vehicles which had stopped on the motorway after a “minor shunt”.
Mrs Mercer said: “They keep doing review after review after review. In the meantime, people are still dying.
“There’s a really strong feeling against these. We need to embarrass the Government into actually doing something.
“We don’t need a raft of changes. We just need the hard shoulder back in every single instance.”
Jason Mercer, 44, died following a collision on the M1 northbound on 7 June 2019. Pic: South Yorkshire Police @syptweet
However, the TSC was “not convinced” that such a policy would boost safety.
The committee concluded: “The evidence suggests that doing so could put more drivers and passengers at risk of death and serious injury.
“The Government is right to focus on upgrading the safety of all-lane running motorways.”
The TSC urged ministers to “consider alternative options for enhancing capacity” on motorways.
Protesters carry 38 38 cardboard coffins, one for each life lost on smart motorways between 2014 and 2019
Smart motorways protester march across Westminster Bridge.
It is calling on the government to install controlled smart motorways, instead of all-lane running motorways.
Controlled smart motorways have a permanent hard shoulder and use technology to regulate traffic and have the “lowest casualty rates” of all roads across motorways and major A roads in England.
The committee’s report said: “The Government and National Highways should pause the rollout of new all-lane running schemes until five years of safety and economic data is available for every all-lane running scheme introduced before 2020 and the implementation of the safety improvements in the Government’s action plan has been independently evaluated.”
Mrs Mercer, from Rotherham, said the number of coffins corresponded to the official number of people killed on smart motorways between 2014 and 2019.
Protesters carry placards saying ‘Just turn the first lane off’ and ‘restore the hard shoulder save lives’
Mrs Mercer said her campaign is educating the public about the risks of smart motorways.
“My husband might still be alive if he’d known what a smart motorway was,” she added.
Jack Szwarc, who was wearing a leg brace, said he almost died on a smart motorway in April.
The 33-year-old from Wolverhampton said he came off his motorbike at 60mph on the M6, having nowhere safe to escape when the engine died.
“Smart motorways almost cost me an arm and a leg,” he said, describing how his bike slammed against the barrier, causing him to lose “a big chunk” of his leg, shattering his kneecap and dislocating his shoulder.
Jack Szwarc almost died on a smart motorway in April
“We’re all here as receipts from the hidden costs of profits over people,” he added.
Conservative MP Sir Mike Penning, who claims he was misled when he supported the rollout of smart motorways in his role as roads minister from 2010-2012, said the TSC’s findings were “another significant step in the fight to improve safety on these motorways”.
An additional 300 miles of smart motorways without hard shoulders could be rolled out across England by 2025.
A judo Olympian has said her family is “devastated” after the discovery of body in the search for her missing brother.
Lubjana Piovesana, 28, appealed for help to find her younger sibling, Luis, 26, on Saturday. He had not been seen since the early hours of Friday morning.
A body was found in the River Frome near Napier Road in Eastville, Bristol, at around 6pm today, Avon and Somerset Police said.
Formal identification is yet to take place, the force added.
In a post on Instagram, Ms Piovesana wrote: “Hello everyone, Luis has been found.
“We are completely devastated but he has passed away.
“I am grateful for everyone’s support. And I am so sorry this happened.
“Luis was my little brother and loved by everyone. I wish he could have seen the love from everyone. He will be remembered by us all.”
The post was signed off with a dove emoji.
Luis Piovesana did not have any money or his mobile phone with him when he went missing, police said. Pics: Avon & Somerset Police
Mr Piovesana was last seen at around 3am on Friday at the Eastgate retail park, which is less than a 10-minute walk away from where the body was found.
He had travelled there by taxi from a venue in Little Ann Street, St Jude’s, a 10-minute drive away.
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The 26-year-old’s family spent the weekend searching for him, and asked people to check their sheds and gardens.
His partner, Laurin Bohler, said loved ones had travelled from Birmingham to help.
Mounted officers and police drones were also involved in the investigation.
Ms Piovesana competed for Team GB before switching to the Austrian team, and defeated British competitor Lucy Renshall in the women’s -63kg judo event at the Paris Olympics last year.
A man has been jailed for life for murdering his son’s girlfriend after she returned home from the school run.
Officers from Dyfed-Powys Police were called to an address on Bigyn Road in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, on 5 July last year.
Sophie Evans, 30, had sustained 72 separate injuries on the outside of the body, “all but three of them new injuries”.
Richard Jones, who is now 50, believed he was “being taken advantage of financially” by Ms Evans and his son, with whom she was in a relationship.
While the purpose of Jones’s visit was “purely normal”, he confronted her on that morning about his suspicions and Ms Evans’s reaction was such that Jones “lost [his] temper”.
He subjected Ms Evans to “gross violence” before ultimately strangling her and leaving the property to run errands, including ordering a new bank card and buying pastries from a bakery.
Richard Jones. Pic: Dyfed-Powys Police
‘Last time on their school run’
During sentencing on Monday, the defendant kept his head bowed for most of the hearing.
He will have to serve at least 20 years behind bars before he can be considered for release by the parole board.
Swansea Crown Court heard Ms Evans was the mother of two young children.
Passing his sentence, Judge Geraint Walters said Ms Evans “had just taken her two children for the last time on their school run” prior to the attack.
“She wasn’t to know that when she parted company with them that morning,” he added.
The court heard the Jones believed he was being defrauded by Ms Evans and his son.
“There is clear evidence, that in the days leading up to this, that you had begun harbouring thoughts that Sophie Evans and your own son were in fact financially scamming you,” he said.
“What precisely brought about that view is difficult to determine.”
Judge Walters said Jones “lost [his] temper when [he] didn’t get the answer that [he] thought [he] deserved”.
He added that, having lost his temper, the defendant “subjected [Ms Evans] to gross violence over a period of time, before you ultimately extinguished her life by strangulation”.
The court was told in evidence that at the time of the attack, Ms Evans was wearing only a bath towel.
‘The rock of our family’
In a victim personal statement, Ms Evans’s sister Kerry Quinlan told the court she was “the rock of our family”.
She said Ms Evans was taken from them in a “senseless and cruel act”.
“Words cannot express fully how much of a loss this has been to her children,” she added.
“When they cry themselves to sleep wanting their mum, she isn’t there and never will be.”
Ms Quinlan added that Jones had “taken everything from us, all in the most despicable way possible”.
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Ms Evans’s partner at the time, and the defendant’s son, Jamie Davies, said in a victim personal statement, read on his behalf, that they had both “trusted” Jones, and that Ms Evans had even been planning the defendant’s 50th birthday.
“The thought of having to live my life without Sophie causes me extreme pain and heartache,” he added.
Prosecuting, Michael Jones KC said the offence was aggravated by the defendant’s previous convictions and the fact Ms Evans was murdered in her home.
In mitigation, David Elias KC said there was a “lack of premeditation”.
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