A crash on a smart motorway which killed two pensioners would not have happened if there had been a hard shoulder, a coroner has said.
Derek Jacobs, 83, died when his van was hit by a car on the M1 near Sheffield in March 2019 after he had stopped in the live inside lane following a tyre blow-out and got out of the vehicle. The front seat passenger in the red Ford Ka that hit the van, Charles Scripps, 78, died in hospital two months after the collision.
The car, being driven by Mr Scripps’s wife, Jean, was shown on dashcam footage flipping over in the carriageway and ending up on its side before it was hit by a coach.
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Concluding that both men died as a result of a road traffic collision, assistant coroner Susan Evans told Chesterfield Coroner’s Court: “Smart motorways are hugely controversial because of the lack of any hard shoulder for motorists to use in times of need such as occurred here.
“It is immediately apparent that, had there been a hard shoulder, this incident would not have occurred because Mr Jacobs would have been able to pull off the live lane entirely.” But the coroner added: “That said, there are many roads in the road network, including dual carriageway A-roads, that are subject to the national speed limit and do not have the benefit of any hard shoulder.”
She heard there was no evidence that Mrs Scripps took any action to avoid the collision, despite the fact Mr Jacobs had parked his van almost touching the crash barrier on the far left of the carriageway.
Miss Evans said: “It is evident Mrs Scripps simply did not see the stationary van before she collided with it. For reasons we will never know, she appeared to have not been paying attention to the road.”
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