My Name is Claire Mercer and three months ago my husband, Jason Mercer, was killed on an All Lanes Running (ALR) 'Smart Motorway'.
Alexandru Murgeanu was also killed in the same incident, he was just 22 years old.
With my family as a campaign team and an army of people who feel as strongly as we do about the dangers of 'smart motorways' we are calling for an immediate halt to them, particularly ALR motorways, where there is never a hard shoulder. To do this we need a judicial review of the decision to bring them in.
Claire Mercer from Smart Motorways Kill
May 28, 2021
Thank you all so much for your on-going support
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"