Widow of man, 83, killed on smart motorway in 2019 is boycotting his inquest after claiming it will be a ‘whitewash’ because National Highways ‘will not be held to account’
- Sally Jacobs, 85, has waited four years for her husband Derek Jacob’s inquest
- Read more: Sunak comes under pressure to scrap ‘death trap’ smart motorways
The widow of a man who was killed on a smart motorway is set to boycott his inquest because she thinks it will be a ‘whitewash’ and ‘National Highways won’t be held fully accountable’.
Derek Jacobs, 83, was killed on the M1 near Sheffield in 2019 after his van suffered a burst tyre and he was forced to stop on the inside lane where the hard shoulder had been removed.
A Ford Ka car hit the part-time engineer’s van which crushed him against the barrier and also killed a 78-year-old passenger in the Ford.
Four years after her husband’s death, Sally Jacobs, 85, is still waiting for his inquest and says it is ‘disgraceful’ that the coroner did not decide to consider the state’s responsibility to preserve a citizen’s right to life, according to the Telegraph.
‘I wanted National Highways to be taken to task for removing the safety of the hard shoulder which meant my husband had nowhere safe to go,’ she said.
Smart motorways – first trialled on the M42 in 2006 – use traffic management methods such as using the hard shoulder as a running lane and variable speed limits to control the flow of traffic
Sally Jacobs, 85, holds a picture of her husband Derek during a segment on ITV news
‘National Highways has used the full might of a very powerful legal team against an 85-year-old widow to get their way.’
Letters from the lawyers of National Highways – the Government-owned company responsible for motorways and major A roads in England – claimed there was no need for a wider scope inquest hearing because overall, removing the hard shoulder meant ‘the majority of risks would decrease’.
READ MORE: Smart motorway crashes will be probed by new independent body focusing on road safety after string of deaths
Now, Mrs Jacobs says she is going to boycott the inquest because she thinks it ‘will be a whitewash and National Highways won’t be held fully accountable’.
She added: ‘Derek would be alive today if there had been a hard shoulder. It’s that simple. He did everything National Highways says you should do in those circumstances; he pulled the van as far over as he could and was trying to get over the barrier before the other car hit.
‘And, the Ford Ka wouldn’t have encountered a vehicle in a live lane if the hard shoulder had been there.’
A National Highways spokesman said: ‘Our deepest sympathies remain with the families of Derek and Charles, and all those affected by this tragic incident.
‘We continue to fully participate in the inquest proceedings and it would be inappropriate to comment further until that process has concluded.’
National Highways also insists smart motorways are ‘our safest roads’ in terms of the number of serious or fatal casualties on them.
Currently, around 10% of England’s motorway network is made up of smart motorways.
Last month, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak faced fresh calls to scrap ‘death trap’ smart motorways.
The Labour MP Sarah Champion highlighted figures suggesting 79 people have been killed on such roads.
A look at one of the emergency refuge areas next to the hard shoulder on a smart motorway
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