![\"Claire](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/1f5b46596b1dddcb616405670bdded46628c89e4\/0_98_3500_2101\/master\/3500.jpg?width=445&quality=85&dpr=1&s=none\")
\u201cMany people across the country rely on driving to get to work, to take their children to school and go about their daily lives, and I want them to be able to do so with full confidence that the roads they drive on are safe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pressure had been mounting on the government to scrap the routes, which have been criticised by MPs and road safety campaigners, including the RAC and AA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Campaigner Claire Mercer,\u00a0whose husband <\/a>was <\/a>killed on a smart motorway in South Yorkshire, welcomed the government\u2019s move but pledged to continue pushing for the hard shoulder to return on every road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She told the PA news agency: \u201cIt\u2019s great, it\u2019s very good news. I\u2019m particularly happy that it\u2019s been confirmed that the routes that are in planning, in progress, have also been cancelled. I didn\u2019t think they\u2019d do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo it\u2019s good news, but obviously it\u2019s the existing ones that are killing us. And I\u2019m not settling for more emergency refuge areas. So it\u2019s half the battle, but we\u2019ve still got half the battle to go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jason Mercer and another man, Alexandru Murgeanu, died in 2019 when they were hit by a lorry on the M1 near Sheffield after they stopped on the inside lane of the smart motorway section after a minor collision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sarah Champion, the Labour MP for Mercer\u2019s Rotherham constituency, said: \u201cI\u2019m relieved the government has finally listened to motorists and common sense, but this announcement is long overdue and I need to see the detail before celebrating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWill the government be returning the hard shoulder on existing conversions? Will the schemes currently in construction be restored? Why now when two parliamentary select committee inquiries, their own review and countless campaigns by family members of those who died on these death traps wasn\u2019t enough to persuade them?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The AA president, Edmund King, said: \u201cWe have had enough coroners passing down their deadly and heart-breaking judgments where the lack of a hard shoulder has contributed to deaths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAt last the government has listened and we are delighted to see the rollout of \u2018smart\u2019 motorways scrapped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe would also like to see the hard shoulder reinstated on existing stretches in due course.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The transport secretary, Mark Harper, said: \u201cWe want the public to know that this government is listening to their concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cToday\u2019s announcement means no new smart motorways will be built, recognising the lack of public confidence felt by drivers and the cost pressures due to inflation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n theguardian<\/p>\n\n\n\n The building of new smart motorways is being cancelled as\u00a0Rishi Sunak\u00a0acknowledged concerns about safety and cost. Fourteen planned\u00a0smart motorways\u00a0\u2013 including 11 that are already paused and three earmarked for construction \u2013 will be removed from government road-building plans, given financial pressures and in recognition of the lack of public trust. Campaigners welcomed the move, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":31361,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[50,12],"tags":[8348,10387,287,9787,4024,7396,7234,5241,5927,1258,5455,2264,6546,9515,10454,1828,9974,4995,9880,278,2402,3805,3174,10722,5266,4843,4012,6736,13057,9881,7333,8302,255,5594,6348,3954,10415,594,10079],"class_list":["post-31360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","category-world-news","tag-ban","tag-campaign","tag-children","tag-collision","tag-common","tag-data","tag-death","tag-died","tag-drivers","tag-england","tag-family","tag-government","tag-inflation","tag-killed","tag-killing","tag-labour","tag-leadership","tag-minor","tag-motorway","tag-mp","tag-mps","tag-president","tag-prime-minister","tag-removed","tag-rishi-sunak","tag-road-safety","tag-rotherham","tag-school","tag-scrap","tag-smart","tag-summer","tag-sunak","tag-tory","tag-traffic","tag-us","tag-will","tag-work","tag-who","tag-yorkshire"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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