A coroner has called on National Highways to take action to prevent future deaths on all lane running (ALR) smart motorways following the death of a passenger in a car that was hit by a lorry in a live lane.
In January 2018, a car broke down on an ALR stretch of the southbound M1 motorway near Daventry. Mr David Levett was a rear seat passenger in a second vehicle that ‘came to the rescue’ of the car and parked behind it in lane one.
A lorry then collided with the rear of the second vehicle, pushing it into the rear of the first vehicle. Mr Levett received severe head and chest injuries and died a few weeks later.
Anne Pember, senior coroner for Northamptonshire, concluded that Mr Levett had died as a result of a road traffic collision.
However, in a prevention of future deaths report, she told National Highways that in her opinion action should be taken to prevent future deaths and she believed that the company had the power to take such action.
She noted that the collision had occurred on an ALR smart motorway and there was nowhere for the driver of the broken down car to park safely, ‘e.g. on a hard shoulder’.
National Highways said it would consider the coroner’s report and respond within the 56-day deadline given.
Regional director Andrew Jinks said: ‘We offer our deepest sympathies and condolences to the family of Mr Levett and all those affected by this tragic incident.
‘We care about everyone who uses our roads and are continuing to make our network as safe as possible. We have committed £900m to safety improvements on the network, including building additional places to stop in an emergency and installing new technology to spot stopped vehicles.
‘Safety on our roads remains our absolute priority and we will continue to build on the work and safety improvements already under way to help drivers and passengers feel and be safe.’
National Highways pointed out that stopped vehicle detection (SVD) technology has been installed on the stretch of the M1 smart motorway through Northamptonshire since this incident and that it has successfully delivered a number of actions from the Government’s March 2020 smart motorway stocktake and action plan.
It added that it has also committed to installing 150 additional emergency areas on ALR smart motorways and that it was recently announced that £105m would be spent over the next two years to build further resilience into operational technology, including replacing older CCTV cameras.
