South Yorkshire widow on smart motorways: 'There's no substitute for the hard shoulder'
Claire Mercer from Rotherham's been speaking to us about recent developments concerning radar technology on smart motorways
A widow from Rotherham says it's 'unacceptable' that smart motorways have ever been allowed to function without potentially lifesaving radar technology on them.
The government recently confirmed that they've installed the technology on 111 more miles of smart motorway across England in the past 12 months.
However, Claire Mercer-whose husband Jason died on a stretch of smart motorway in South Yorkshire back in 2019-doesn't think that's good enough:
"I'm angry that the technology is only being added now. Why is it needed for a retrofit? Why wasn't it installed in the first place?
"My husband's life would've potentially been saved by that radar technology.
"There's only one thing that needs to happen though, and that's the return of the hard shoulder in every instance.
"Even the radar technology doesn't save you. If you break down in a live lane, you haven't got 17 minutes to hang on for help-that's the average response time.
"So many people have been killed just trying to exit their vehicle.
"They've not even had time to leap out of their stranded vehicle to safety, so the radar technology isn't the long-term fix-we need the hard shoulder back."
National Highways has committed to ensuring every stretch of motorway where the hard shoulder has been permanently removed will have radar technology fitted by the end of September.
There are about 375 miles of smart motorway in England, including 235 miles without a hard shoulder.