Rotherham MP calls for Government to reinstate hard shoulder on ‘smart motorways’

Ms Champion has secured a debate in Westminster Hall on February 22, where she will call on the Government to reinstate hard shoulders across the motorway network.

In her speech, Ms Champion will highlight evidence from National Highways that shows that removing the hard shoulder more than triples the risk of incidents leading to death or serious injury.

Ms Champion has campaigned extensively to deliver safety improvements on Britain’s smart motorways, alongside Claire Mercer whose husband Jason was killed on the South Yorkshire M1 in 2019.

Coroners concluded that the lack of a hard shoulder contributed to their deaths.

Mrs Mercer will attend the debate on behalf of her campaign group, Smart Motorways Kill, which she began following the tragic death of her husband, who died alongside Alexandru Murgeanu, when they were hit by a lorry north of junction 34.

Ms Champion said: “The Government have been warned time and time again that removing the hard shoulder greatly increases the risks faced by motorists. Their own data shows this all too clearly. Yet they continue to reject calls to undo their own tragic mistake.

‘The Prime Minister himself, during his leadership campaign, branded smart motorways unsafe. But now he is in office, he needs more evidence. How much more evidence does he need? How many more people have to die?

‘The sad reality is that the Government is prioritising increasing motorway capacity on the cheap and gambling the lives of motorists to get it.’

‘We don’t need more evidence to see what is already staring us in the face. Smart motorways are deadly. If the Government truly carted about the safety of motorists, they would restore the hard shoulder across the motorway network.”

Dr Alan Billings, South Yorkshire’s police and crime commissioner has backed the calls, adding: “I fully support Sarah Champion’s call to end these deadly motorways and urge the government to restore the hard shoulders across the motorway network.

“It has always been my view that it is inherently dangerous when a vehicle stops, for whatever reason, in a live lane and there is no hard shoulder. This has led to fatalities and to numerous near misses. and a refuge is too far away. It builds danger into the motorway network when we should be designing danger out.

“When a vehicle breaks down in a live lane there will always be a time lapse before a controller is able to show a red cross above it on the gantry and stop other vehicles using the lane. This puts lives at risk. As long as smart motorways are in use the travelling public are always in danger.”

The Smart Motorways Kill campaign aims to bring a Judicial Review against Highways England and the Department for Transport over the‘failures in safety and the manner in which the implementation has been handled’.