Widow’s messages on ‘smart’ M-ways
ROADS: A widow whose husband was killed on a socalled smart motorway has said she receives 20 messages a week from people who have experienced near misses or actively avoid the roads.
Claire Mercer’s husband Jason was killed along with another man, Alexandru Murgeanu, on the M1 in 2019.
A YORKSHIRE widow whose husband was killed on a so-called smart motorway has said she receives 20 messages a week from people who have experienced near misses or actively avoid the roads as she feared it was just a matter of time before someone else loses their life.
Claire Mercer’s husband Jason was killed along with another man, Alexandru Murgeanu, on the M1 close to the Meadowhall shopping centre, in Sheffield in June 2019.
The stretch of road has no hard shoulder, which is now used as an active lane as part of the conversion into a smart motorway.
And at an inquest in January, Sheffield coroner David Urpeth said the lack of a hard shoulder had contributed to the tragedy.
Mrs Mercer, from Rotherham, has since been demanding a judicial review into the roll out of smart motorways, as a Yorkshire MP suggested the stretches of road in the North – where many of the high profile deaths have occurred – may be even more dangerous than in the South.
She said: “We had a family in Sheffield, five members of the family in one car, and it stopped in the third lane.
“And it was the husband that actually contacted us because he was the one that wasn’t in the car, he couldn’t deal with nearly losing every single member of his family in one go.”
She added: “We get 10 messages a week telling us that, we get 20 messages a week – and this is just the ones that go out of their way to contact us – saying ‘I drive miles out of my way to avoid smart motorways’.”
In a meeting with Shadow Transport Secretary Jim McMahon and Rotherham MP Sarah Champion, Mrs Mercer said she still did not know how the scheme came “from the drawing board into existence”.
The Government has said steps will be taken to make the roads safer.
Sally Jacobs, whose husband Derek was killed on the M1 south of Sheffield in March 2019, when tyre problems forced him to stop his van, said the red X symbol, meaning a hazard ahead, was not enough to save him.
“In Derek’s case, they didn’t have time to get it (the red X) up,” she said.
Niaz Shazad, whose mother Nargis Begum, 62 and from Sheffield,
was killed on the inside lane of the M1 in 2018, was also at the meeting along with his sister Saima Aktar.
Ms Champion, who has been supporting the families, said that action must be forthcoming now.
And she added: “Because of lockdown and Covid I’ve been driving down to London more, and it’s very notable to me the closer to London you get the more cameras there are, the more refuges there are, the more gantries there are.”
The Department for Transport was contacted for comment.
Five members of the family in one car, and it stopped in the third lane. Claire Mercer’s husband Jason was killed on a stretch of smart motorway
IT WAS to be a highlight of the musical calendar for two members of a brass band.
Tuba player Terry Hardy and his son Rob, who plays cornet, both play for Strata Brass, and would have been competing at the Yorkshire Brass Band Championships, in Huddersfield, at the weekend.
But the contest has been cancelled due to Covid.
It is the first time in 36 years that the father and son have not played together, for Strata Brass, at the championships.
The pair had been rehearsing in Terry’s house at Kilnhurst, South Yorkshire.
The origins of Strata Brass can be traced back to 1889, with the band celebrating its 125th anniversary in 2014.
It has been known under several names over the years, including Hoyland Rechabites,
Cortonwood Colliery, Hoyland Town Ireland Alloys, Wards Brewery, Weaver Building Group and the current name of Strata Brass.
The band is under the musical direction of Jonathan Bates, who accepted the post in July 2017. He balances conducting the band with a successful playing career, where he is currently solo horn for the world-famous Foden’s Band.