Smart motorways: Widow seizes upon ruling in fight to rid Britain of road system

Barely a moment had passed since the coroner’s verdict when Claire Mercer charged over to a police officer at the inquest into her husband’s death and began the next stage of her campaign for justice.

“As soon as the coroner left the room, I marched up to Mark Brady and said: ‘Right, are you going to investigate them for corporate manslaughter now?’” Mrs Mercer, 44, said.

Her husband, Jason, died in a car crash while stopped on a smart motorway in June 2019. The inquest found that the careless driving of a lorry driver was the primary cause of his death but that it was “clear a lack of hard shoulder contributed to this tragedy”.

The coroner added that smart motorways “present an ongoing risk” of future fatalities. Mrs Mercer wants to avoid this happening by axing the initiative, and she wants to have Highways England prosecuted for its role in her husband’s death.