Halt smart motorways, says M1 crashh driver’s sister r

THE sister of a delivery driver killed on the M1 after he failed to find a safe refuge following a minor collision has backed calls for the roll-out of smart motorways to be halted.

Alexandru Murgeanu, 22, and Jason Mercer, 44, died after they were hit by a lorry when they stopped to exchange insurance details on the hard shoulder, which had been opened to traffic.

The men, who died in June, were the third and fourth people to die on the stretch of motorway in 10 months.

Mr Murgeanu’s sister, Andreea, has added her name to a list of relatives of those killed who fear removing the hard shoulder is putting lives at risk. The Government has promised to nearly double the smart motorway network from 416 to 788 miles.

Speaking from her home in Bârlad, Romania, Ms Murgeanu said: “I am really afraid that unless safety issues regarding smart motorways are reviewed more families may lose loved ones.

“The British Government must do something to ensure people are safe if they are going to continue to build them. Four people dying on the same stretch of motorway means you have to ask whether smart motorways contributed to these tragedies.”

‘ I am really afraid that unless safety issues are reviewed more families may lose loved ones’

Last week, The Sunday Telegraph disclosed how four people stranded on a 16-mile stretch of M1 had been killed. Last September, a 62-year-old woman died after a car she was in broke down near Sheffield before being hit by another vehicle. In March, Derek Jacobs, 83, died when his Volkswagen Crafter got a puncture on the M1 in Derbyshire and was hit by a coach.

Ms Murgeanu, 25, has now backed a call by Claire Mercer, Mr Mercer’s widow, for a judicial review into whether smart motorways are safe.

Explaining how she and her brother moved to Britain two years ago, and Mr Murgeanu became a Yodel delivery driver three months before his death, she said: “Alexandru loved Britain. His death has shocked his family. We miss him so much. I don’t want other families to lose loved ones in this way.”

After her brother’s death, Ms Murgeanu could not bear to stay in Britain and so returned to Romania.

The Telegraph previously disclosed how the stretch of smart motorway where the pair died had raised more than £6million in speeding fines since 2017.

A total of 62,337 tickets were issued between junction 30 and 35a of the M1 in just two years and eight months, boosting government coffers by up to £6,233,700.