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The heartbroken widow of a van driver who died in a smart highway horror crash is calling for the emergency lane to be brought back before another ‘terrible catastrophe’ takes place.
Derek Jacobs, 83, was killed when his van was hit by the red Ford Ka on the M1 near Sheffield in March 2019.
The passenger in the Ford Ka, Charles Scripps, 78, died in hospital two months after the collision.
Dashcam footage from a trailing vehicle showed the car, driven by Mr Scripps’ wife, Jean, colliding with the van, flipping over midair and rolling into oncoming traffic, eventually being hit by a carriage.
Earlier this month, a coroner ruled that the crash would not have happened had there been an emergency lane for Mr Jacobs to pull into.
Commenting on the inquiry on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Mr Jacobs’ widow, Sally Jacobs, 86, said she was dismayed that in light of this and other tragic incidents emergency lanes had not been reintroduced on smart motorways.
Ms Jacobs (left) has said it’s hard to move on without her late husband Derek (pictured right)
The moment the FordKa hit Mr. Jacobs’ van on a smart highway before flipping into the lane and landing on its side in a collision was captured on dashcam
She said, ‘I don’t know [if hard shoulders will be reinstated]. I don’t believe anything they tell me right now.
“The safest thing we can have is the hard shoulder, you have that on everything else. They took it away.
She [the driver who hit Derek] didn’t pay attention, okay, but that woman wouldn’t have been on that lane if there had been an emergency lane.
“So my condolences go out to her because not only did she kill my husband, she killed her own husband, but as for restoring the hard shoulders, the political party that says in their manifesto that they will restore them will get thousands of thousands of votes.’
This month it emerged that the rollout of smart highways will be halted until the government has five years of safety data from existing schemes.
The news was welcomed by Ms Jacobs, who told ITV her husband had ‘no chance’ of escaping his van.
She continued, “My husband didn’t stand a chance at all, he drove as far as he could to the barrier.
“He couldn’t get over it. If Derek could have kept that car on the road, he would have. he got off after a mile.
“I can’t bring Derek back, but I will continue to campaign because I don’t want other families to suffer this way.
‘I loved this man for 66 years and it is very difficult to live without him.
“Now please listen to us, restore the hard shoulder… You paint the white line, you raise the crosses, and those cameras can be used for all other lanes.”
“Please, please listen for more deaths or a terrible catastrophe.”
Derek Jacobs, 83, was killed when his van was hit by the red Ford Ka on the M1 near Sheffield in March 2019 after he stopped on the inside lane and got out of the vehicle after a tire blowout
Sally Jacobs has called for the hard shoulder to be reintroduced on smart highways
Sally Jacobs is holding a picture of her husband Derek during a segment on ITV news earlier this year
In an inquest earlier this month which concluded that both Mr Jacobs and Mr Scripps died as a result of a traffic accident, Assistant Coroner Susan Evans told Chesterfield Coroner Court: ‘Smart highways are hugely controversial because of the lack of to use an emergency lane for motorists in times of emergency as happened here.
“It is immediately clear that, had there been an emergency lane, this incident would not have occurred because Mr. Jacobs could have driven completely off the live lane.”
But the coroner added: “Having said that, there are many roads in the road network, including two lane A roads, which are subject to the national speed limit and have no emergency lane.”
She learned that there was no evidence that Mrs. Scripps had taken any action to avoid the collision, despite the fact that Mr. Jacobs parked his van almost against the guardrail on the far left side of the roadway.
Miss Evans said: ‘Obviously Mrs Scripps just didn’t see the stationary van before she collided with it. For reasons we’ll never know, she didn’t seem to be paying attention to the road.’
Collision investigator Sergeant Paul Moorcroft gave evidence on Wednesday and said: “It is highly, highly unlikely that this collision would have occurred had there been an emergency lane.”
The inquest found that Mr Jacobs’ van was stationary in the lane for three minutes and 34 seconds before being struck by the Scripps’ car.
Sergeant Moorcroft said the retired machinist pulled his van over so that it was only about two feet out of the roadway and the Ford could have passed it without entering the second lane.
He also told the inquest that his analysis showed that retired teacher Mrs Scripps, who was 77 at the time, had enough time to see the obstruction and that many other drivers had taken action.
The officer said footage from the incident showed no signs of her steering or braking to avoid the collision.
Sergeant Moorcroft said, “It is my opinion that distraction or a prolonged period of inattention by Mrs Scripps was the main causative factor in this collision.”
He told the inquest that Ms. Scripps had not been interviewed because of her health and the inquest heard medical evidence that she had been diagnosed with dementia six months after the crash.
But there was nothing in her medical records at the time of the collision to suggest she shouldn’t be driving, the inquest heard.
Widow of van driver who died in smart highway accident begs for hard shoulder