Somehow its nearly 5 years since a smart motorway killed my husband!

admittedly things are taking A LOT longer with the judicial review than expected, but it is still very much in action. As always, the devil is in the detail, it’s the small print thats taking years longer than expected.

In the meantime, we are continuing with participating in documentaries (latest Panorama, see iPlayer) and a Channel 5/ITN production coming out on May 15th (stc)

as well as:

Continuing to push for corporate manslaughter charges
Pursuing new routes with HSE (very early stages)
Publishing contacts anonymously from whistle blowers to show true scale of known problems
Staging and participating in events to continue to raise awareness

and, an exhibition...

In nearly 5 years of campaigning Smart Motorways Kill have received vast quantities of contacts from the public, via social media, messages and emails. Describing the effect the removal of the hard shoulder has had on their lives. From worrying about “who to grab first” in the event of a breakdown to feeling discriminated against due to being disabled, the strength of feeling and number of messages has only increased over the years.

Now a 2-year span of these messages from people who are angry, let down and sometime scared, injured and/or bereaved have been collated and organised into categories for display.

Tellingly the section roughly grouped as “The government don’t care” is one of the largest sections.

let’s see if an upcoming election changes that!

See our website, Facebook, X and Instagram for more up to date info. All called Smart Motorways Kill

Unfortunately, the wheels of justice turn very slowly, but even more slowly when you are treading uncharted ground, so I just wanted to say:
Yes we are still here and Yes we are still working away on getting smart motorways scrapped by any means possible!

Irwin Mitchel are still working to bring a judicial review to get smart motorways scrapped in the high court, but with National Highways:

* slow timing us (not responding "in a timely manner")

* using tax payers money to pay other agencies to read the in-depth expert reports we've had prepared

* making unsuitable offers to compromise ("work together")

….the judicial review is taking a very long time

At campaign HQ (my house) my campaign team (my family and retired Traffic Sergeant Mike Rawson) are continuing to raise awareness of the campaign, do interviews for news, media and documentaries, plan protests and event, with hopefully an exhibition soon (more info asap) while keeping the website and social media up to date.

here's a link to the latest article I wrote recently "SUMMARY OF SITUATION WITH TRYING TO GET NH TO FACE CORPORATE MANSLAUGHTER CHARGES FOR DEATHS ON SMART MOTORWAYS"

    https://smartmotorwayskill.co.uk/summary-of-situation-with-trying-to-get-nh-to-face-corporate-manslaughter-charges-for-deaths-on-smart-motorways/

....changing smart motorway government policy and we can do much more

We have made significant progress with the preparation needed to bring legal proceedings against National Highways (‘NH’) and the Department for Transport (DfT). We remain committed to progressing with the legal case and to continue to push for the immediate reinstatement of the hard shoulder in order to ensure the safety of road users and to avoid further unnecessary loss of life. To push forward with the legal case we need to raise vital funds to meet the associated costs; if you support the campaign we would urge you to donate what you can via this page.

Recap

The legal team at Irwin Mitchell previously identified that fresh evidence was required to present to NH and DfT in order to progress the legal case. We instructed Sarah Simpson, an associate advisory group director for transport planning working at Royal HaskoningDHV to carry out a thorough review of ALR Smart Motorways and to set out her findings in a report.

Last year, the report of Sarah Simpson concluded:

• That she was in “no doubt that the ALR smart motorway has the lowest level of intrinsic safety” of all motorways because “best practice” in road safety, known as Safe Systems – which focuses on eliminating the most deadly hazards – wasn’t properly adopted or considered when implementing smart motorways.

• That people are more likely to be involved in live lane incidents on ALR smart motorways and that when this happens “people are more likely to die or be seriously injured”.

• The way in which Highways England has implemented Safe Systems “aligns with the value engineering approach used to compromise safety in order to secure cost savings in developing ALR.”

• The public expected meaningful consultation on smart motorways as they were a “material change to the transport network”; local highway authorities frequently consult on new bus stops, and Highways England consults on major changes, such as the A303 at Stonehenge but failed to do so in respect of smart motorways.

• That she was “struck by the paucity of data and analysis underpinning the decision”, in particular that the evidence provided by the 2020 Smart Motorways Stocktake was partial and failed to allow direct comparison of the various types of smart motorway.

• As a result, “the decision to continue with the type of smart motorway which is associated with the highest rate of people killed or seriously injured is not justified.”

The report was provided the first comprehensive and independent review into the safety of All Lane Running Smart Motorways and was fundamental to the proposed legal case against NH and the DfT. The report was deployed to both NH and the DfT and they were invited to consider the serious concerns which had been highlighted by Sarah in the report. The legal team at Irwin Mitchell invited NH and DfT to:

Immediately reinstate the hard-shoulder on all ALR SM.

Halt the implementation of any new ALR Smart Motorway schemes (including work to convert existing motorways) which had previously been given approval.

Adopt Controlled Motorways as the preferred form of Smart Motorways.

NH and DfT declined to agree to any of the proposals above and instead suggested that any response to Sarah’s report would need to wait until the outcome of the inquiry by the Transport Select Committee which was scheduled to take place in June 2021.

TSC Review and Report

The TSC’s enquiry took place in June; Claire, Sarah and other individuals affected by ALR Smart Motorways provided both oral and written evidence to the committee.

In November 2021, the TSC published its findings. Within its report:

MPs called on the Government to pause the rollout of ALR Smart Motorways until five years of safety and economic data is available and safety improvements have been delivered and independently evaluated

MPs stated that NH and DfT failed to deliver on promises to implement safety improvements for all-lane running Smart Motorways

MPs stated that safety risks should have been addressed before all-lane running Smart Motorways were rolled out.

MPs noted that available data on safety of ALR Smart Motorways was ‘limited and volatile’

It was noted that communicating this radical change to motorway design has been ‘woeful’ with more than half of drivers still unclear on what to do if they break down in a live lane.

Government’s response

The DfT’s response to that report was published on 12 January 2022. In summary, DfT has agreed to:

Pause the roll out of future ALR smart motorway schemes in order to gather further safety and economic data across a wider network of open ALR smart motorways and to complete and evaluate the rollout of measures within the Stocktake and Action Plan.

The Government is committing funds to retrofit emergency refuge areas to ALR Smart Motorways which will remain in operation; there is currently no schedule or programme for this work.

Commission the Office of Rail and Road to conduct an independent evaluation of the effectiveness and operation of stopped vehicle detection technology.

Campaign response

Whilst some Government’s response may sound reasonable at first glance, a closer read into their full response shows some glaring omissions and an irrational approach:

ALR Smart Motorway schemes under construction and which are already over 50% complete will be completed and will operate as ALR Smart Motorways.

There is no programme or schedule of work as to when the retrofit of emergency refuge areas of SVD technology will be started or completed.

The Government has committed to revisiting the case for controlled motorways but will not report until later in the year when it has collated further data about ALR Smart Motorways.

Crucially, despite clear concerns expressed by the TSC and the Government acknowledging the need for more safety data to justify the use of ALR Smart Motorways – the existing schemes (and those which are over 50% constructed) will remain in operation. This means that the lives of motorists will continue to be put at risk and that people will continue to lose their lives on ALR Smart Motorways, whilst further reviews are carried out. We do not think that this is acceptable given the abundance of evidence provided to the TSC, NH and DfT.

We’ve taken advice from Irwin Mitchell and we are committed to progressing with the legal case. We will continue to push for the immediate reinstatement of the hard shoulder in order to ensure the safety of road users and to avoid further unnecessary loss of life.

Next steps

The next stage in the legal case is for Irwin Mitchell to send a formal letter before action to NH and DfT setting out the legal grounds for the judicial review. NH and DfT have 14 days to respond to the letter. The response will need to be carefully scrutinised by our legal team but ultimately if NH and DfT decline unreasonably to agree to our proposals, we will be pushing forwards to issue the case in the High Court.

To press forward and get the case into court, additional funds will be needed. Our legal team will be working tirelessly to present the strongest case to the High Court and will obtain further evidence from Sarah Simpson, as well as engaging a specialist public law barrister (Queen’s Counsel). If you support the campaign to reinstate the hard shoulder then please donate what you can so that we can push forwards and avoid future deaths on these dangerous roads.

*Further updates on the legal case will be provided at relevant stages.

... particularly since the protest on November the 1st. which went better than we could have dreamed.

There continues to be a lot of press coverage and more and more of the public are becoming aware of just how we are having the wool pulled over our eyes about these dangerous roads and who is benefiting while the lives of motorists are put at risk.

The (non) announcement from government last week about pausing the rollout of smart motorways had so much small print it wasn't worth the paper it was written on.

Of the 150 miles of s.m currently being converted less than a 3rd of it will be paused! the rest will all open as planned, with no hard shoulder, and most of it with none or barely any tech either!

The only benefit of the government’s announcement is that it springboards our case into court. National Highways were refusing to engage with us on the legal case, but couldn't ignore the Select Committee. We have been able to use their response to the select committee in the prolonged absence of a response to us, and Irwin Mitchel are in the process of starting action for court.

Getting this case into court, getting ALR banned in law will be far more effective than all the campaigning and protesting in the world.

The government will have no choice but to stop spending millions and millions of the public’s money on something the public doesn't want.

Highways England are trying to 'slow time' us, hoping the campaign will lose momentum, they are purposely using delaying tactics to hold up the legal process. 

The government, DfT and Highways England suddenly and unexpectedly made a huge song and dance a few weeks ago, issuing cryptic press releases saying they had statements to make on smart motorways. When the announcement came there was very little new in it. It was mainly the same old promises that have been recycled for at least 6 years, by sheer co-incidence the deadline on our pre-legal action expired the next day!

After announcing to the country that they had made a whole raft of new, informed decisions on the Tuesday, by the Wednesday: [paraphrased reply to our lawyers] We have not had time to read the very compressive expert report and don't know when we will have time!

So the informed decisions came about without consulting the only truly independent expert submission.

We will not give up but its looking increasingly likely that we are going to have to take yet more action in order to stop the delaying tactic.

I was warned at the start of this that "this process will take a long time" and my reply was "my husband will be dead for a long time"

Please find following more detail on the previously mentioned Experts Report.

Sarah Simpson of Royal HaskoningDHV, a transport planner with 20 years of experience and author of the report stated:

• That she was in “no doubt that the ALR smart motorway has the lowest level of intrinsic safety” of all motorways. This is because “best practice” in road safety, known as Safe Systems – which focuses on eliminating the most deadly hazards – wasn’t properly adopted or considered when implementing smart motorways.

• That people are more likely to be involved in live lane incidents on ALR smart motorways and that when this happens “people are more likely to die or be seriously injured”.

• As a result of Highways England not fully implementing the Safe Systems approach to road safety, the ALR motorways safety is compromised.

• Highways England adopted the Safe Systems approach in 2015 – seven years after the Transport Select Committee identified it as “warranting proper exploration for adoption”.

• The public expected meaningful consultation on smart motorways as they were a “material change to the transport network”. Local highway authorities frequently consult on new bus stops, and Highways England consults on major changes, such as the A303 at Stonehenge, but failed to do so in respect of smart motorways.

• Aside from the M42 pilot and despite the need for strong public engagement being identified by the guidance to designers of smart motorways as early as 2008, this has not happened. The first public or stakeholder engagement on smart motorways was in 2019, 10 years after the first permanent smart motorways opened.

• That she was “struck by the paucity of data and analysis underpinning the decision”, in particular that the evidence provided by the 2020 Smart Motorways Stocktake was partial and failed to allow direct comparison of the various types of smart motorway.

• As a result, “the decision to continue with the type of smart motorway which is associated with the highest rate of people killed or seriously injured is not justified.”

There are proposed changes to the spacing of emergency laybys and the development of technology to identify stranded vehicles. Yet the report found that ALRs would still have fewer safety measures in place than other countries which have ALR and which have adopted Smart Systems, such as Australia.

The experts report has been finished after a year of work. The sole purpose of commissioning this independent report was as follows:

You must file a judicial review within 3 months of a decision or action, obviously smart motorways have been in longer than 3 months. So Irwin Mitchell needed a new 'decision' from Highways England on with to hinged a judicial review on. Hence the report.

The report how now been sent to Highways England with evidence based observations and recommendations. i.e. we need the hard shoulder back. and a Pre Letter before Action, to confirm we will start legal proceeding.

Highways England can now choose to accept and adopt the reports recommendations, which would be great as we would get the hard shoulder back quicker. Or they can reject it, if the do reject it that is the 'decision' we need to file in court for a Judicial Review to get smart motorways banned in law.

Its taken over 18 months to get to this point, but I'm sure I can see the hard shoulder on the horizon!

The inquest went as well as such a horrible experience can go, as at the trial we learnt more details about what happened before, during and after Jason & Alexandru's deaths and after 18 months it still hurts.

The intense media interest has been exhausting but great for getting the message out there and has had a great effect on this crowd funder too. I just wanted to make it clear, in case it wasn't already, the original target of £20,000 was only ever to get us to court. Anyone who's experienced legal costs before will be aware that £20,000 does not buy a year and a half's work by a team of lawyers, barrister, QC's and legal experts.
It was always explained to me that more would be needed once we got closer to the court date (I have a meeting next week to discuss time lines, etc) so I just wanted to explain why the target is moving, unfortunately that was always the case, its just done in portions, so as not to make the full amount seem insurmountable!

Thank you again

Claire

The inquest into Jason & Alexandru's deaths starts tomorrow. Its had to be moved to Sheffield Town Hall because of the number of people and media wanting to attend.

I feel sick and don't want to go, I don't want to put my family through this either, but I feel I must go and my family want to be by my side.

There are things the Coroner can do to help end smart motorways but we won't know if he will be using those powers until the end of the inquest (Tuesday) I just hope we don't sit thought all the detail for no reason. 

Either way the campaign will continue and the fight goes on.

We have now got so many different forms of legal action on the go its making me a bit dizzy!
The Judicial Review (JR) is still by far the most important as it has the best outcome. i.e. getting smart motorways (SM) banned in a court of law.

As well as the JR, we have also reported Highways England (HE) to the Police for Corporate Manslaughter. South Yorkshire Police have declined to investigate this complaint, so unfortunately we've had to refer this decision to the IoPC. This is not an action we wanted to take, but we can't just sit by and let 'business' politics take over investigations into Jason's & Alexandru's death.

We have also put an appeal out for other people that have been injured or had loved ones killed on SM to join us in what is basically a class action suit against HE.

Jason & Alexandru's inquest has been ruled an Article 2 inquest, this refers to Article 2 of the Human Rights Act, and examines whether the 'state' are involved in a person death (HE are a government own company) We have now instructed legal representation for the inquest, which is currently scheduled for mid January, but this may now change.

SMK is still looking into how we can bring a case for disability discrimination against HE too, because people with limited mobility are in even more danger on these roads. We need to look into whether to add this to the JR or whether to bring it as a separate complaint.

We are also doing a lot of research and work behind the scenes, sending Freedom of Information requests, canvassing people and organisation that can help, researching our options and reviewing data and reports, keeping social media updated and doing lots of media interviews.

So we are keeping very busy as the gears of law turn slowly, in these unprecidentent times.

Regards

Claire

With the yesterdays court case getting so much media attention it shone a light on just how strong the hate, fear and strength of feeling against smart motorways is.
As one voice together we are louder and stronger than ever.

We can't keep jailing drivers for every individual incident, that wouldn't have happened if it wasn't on a smart motorway.

We need to bring the people that made us use the smart motorways to justice !  
but first more importantly we need to stop smart motorways!

 and your donations are making this happen

The very generous donations keep coming in, thank you so much it all makes a big difference.
We were hoping to have a court date by now but obviously Covid has delayed this, there is still lots of work going on however and we just aim to be EVEN more prepared for when we do get a court date.

Myself and others that have lost loved ones are taking as many other legal avenues as possible, for example: corporate manslaughter charges, a disability discrimination complaint and more to be confirmed against Highways England, on top of the judicial review.

Thank you from all at SMK.

Regards

Claire

Its nearly every day now, articles online and in the papers about crashes, deaths, injuries, massive tail backs and the air ambulance all on smart motorways.

Still the government/highways england don't run education campaigns on what to do if you have a problem on a motorway from which the main safety feature has been removed. I'm still coming across people that dont know and have never heard the term smart motorway. 

Our viewing, listening and newspaper habits have changed massively, H.E need to run a massive over saturation program of social media, online newspapers, tv, radio to try and inform as many people as possible, at least until Smart Motorways Kill get to court to get these death traps banned for good.

Please help us keep the legal fight going, the news of misery these roads are causing is getting out there in the last 2 days there's been article as follows

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8584973/Student-slams-dangerous-called-smart-motorways-horror-crash-M1-killed-friend.html

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/student-reveals-dangers-smart-motorways-18702644

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/students-haunting-smart-motorway-morning-18704592

https://www.eastlondonadvertiser.co.uk/news/m1-smart-motorway-warning-1-6771636

and the following are also all doing articles this week:

Lancs Live

Trucker World

Surrey Live

MyLondon

Essex Live

Derbyshire Live

Belfast Live

Berkshire Live

Herts Live

Grimsby Live

Cambridgeshire Live

Yorkshire Live

Hull Live

Plymouth Live

Kent Live

Leicestershire Live

Staffordshire Live

Leeds Live

Nottinghamshire Live

Somerset Live

Lincolnshire Live

Stoke Live

Cheshire Live

North Wales Live

Thank you

Claire Mercer x

Thank you for all your support, I know the word has turned upside down in the last few month, but our judicial review is still going ahead! 

My family, Irwin Mitchell. the experts they have brought in and myself have all been continuing to work on this through lock down, obviously court cases have been delayed by cvd-19.

The full cost of the case will actually be nearer £100,000 but we didn't want to set what seemed an unachievable target, we are determined one way or another that this IS going ahead it would just be very helpful (!) if I didn't have to remortgage to achieve it!

Again please ignore the counter down time on the crowdfunder page, I don't know why it's there, its not correct and just resets when it reaches 0.

The government announced their response to their review of smart motorways on Thursday the 12th of March, we didn't expect much because again, its the government checking the government, but what was announced was frankly offensive!

The Secretary of State for Transport, Grant Shapps, phoned me the night before the announcement to "run the 18 point plan passed" me. I think he also wanted to be able to say that we at SMK agreed with them, but he was left in no uncertain terms that we do not.  I picked out just two of the points and asked for a detailed break down of how they would be implemented and he repeatedly failed to give me an answer that made any sense.

Some of the 18 points rely more on technology, when we now know that the limited tech (radar/svd) that there is, doesn't work properly (admitted by H.E in documents to a coroner in the death of an 8 y/o boy)  but we're going to have more of that!
AND artificial intelligence camera's! i.e. cameras that aren't watched!!!   we have that already too.

"H.E is committed to closing lanes with in 10 seconds and rescuing you with in 10 minutes of an incident" How will close lanes that quickly with tech that doesn't work and patrols that aren't allowed to stop on a s.m? and rescuing within 10 minutes? my husband was killed in 6 minutes of stopping, Dev Naran was killed in 40 seconds!!!

H.E are going to use third party traffic apps to get updates!!!! why is the government department responsible for traffic using third party apps to get traffic information?

And a £5 million education campaign.  How do you educate a broken car into moving again?  

As you can see these measures are just plasters to cover cracks, they don't go anywhere near far enough and we will not accept them, SMK will be carrying on with the legal action, till we get the hard shoulder back in every single instance.

But we need your help, please donate and share this crowd fund.

Thank you

Please note:

we have a website at smartmotorwayskill.co.uk 

a facebook page at facebook.com/smartmotorwayskill 

and a twitter page at twitter.com/MotorwaysKill 

all of the above are updated and monitored very regularly and have ways to contact us directly.

Thanks

Claire

We can do this, we are really getting some traction now and the donations are really starting to add up, Thank you.
We do understand that not everyone is in a position to donate.

Again ignore the days left counter,  its a silly feature that I wish could be removed as now we have raised this much there is not a set number of days to do it in, we have as long as we need.

Firstly thank you again to everyone! every little bit helps. I've said from the start if everyone that hates smart motorways just gave £1 we'd more than cover the fees!

You may have seen but we've at last started to get some real coverage. There has been a lot of newspaper articles,  TV and radio news coverage and even Panorama and Inside out.
The Panorama Episode on Smart Motorways, which I will be in, airs this Monday at 8:30 on BBC 1

below are links to just a few of the recent interviews:

Sunday Telegraph - https://smartmotorwayskill.co.uk/crime-tsar-reveals-astonishment-as-highways-england-says-smart-motorways-are-safest/ 

Sunday Times - https://smartmotorwayskill.co.uk/are-britains-smart-motorways-death-traps/ 

Press Release from Irwin Mitchell - https://smartmotorwayskill.co.uk/press-release-from-irwin-mitchell/ 

Hallam FM Radio - https://smartmotorwayskill.co.uk/claire-mercer-of-smart-motorways-kills-on-hallam-fm/ 

Debate in Westminter - https://smartmotorwayskill.co.uk/debate-on-smart-motorways-in-westminster/ 

BBC Sheffield Radio - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p07ybss5  (from 1:17 minutes)

Sorry its been a bit quiet on the legal case front, Irwin Mitchell are still working away in the back ground, it is all still going ahead.

Unfortunately it all just takes time. We need to make sure every potential loop hole is blocked, so this case cant be just thrown out on a technicality.

In the mean time our website (smartmotorwayskill.co.uk) and Facebook and twitter page have been busier than ever. We have contributors detailing their experiences and opinions, students doing surveys on smart motorways for their dissertations and more and more newspapers, tv program researchers and radio stations getting in touch. 

This is a subject that isn't going to go away.

As ever thank you for your support

Again please ignore the "number of days left" countdown timer, it just resets when it gets to 0. I've asked for it to be removed but it cant be for some reason. The count down only applied to the initial £2000, which we've already secured.

We are doing so much better than the nay sayers said we would do, but we do have a long way to go (but we also have a while to do it in :) )  nothing moves quickly in the legal world.
So please keep sharing and posting about our crowd funder, it all helps.

With the recently announced review of smart motorways by the government its bought a lot of attention back to this subject, nothings certain yet with all the moneys they've spent and therefore their jobs on the line any 'review' could just conclude "yeah their fine" it is the government checking the government after all.

Also I will be meeting the transport minster soon, so stay tuned for that!

Thank you

Claire

Thank you so much for the donations, they really will make a difference. That's why a judicial review is the route we've chosen, because this is not about compensation, this is about getting smart motorways stopped. They have been sneaked in by the back door, no education given on what to do in if you have a problem and now Highways England are saying painting the refuge areas bright orange will sort everything!  if there nearest 'ERA' is a mile away it doesn't matter what colour it is, you cant see it.
We do need to get the the £2000 marker asap not just so the paperwork application can be started, but also to prove the strength of feeling is there to take this case the whole way.