Mum-of-five killed on M1 smart motorway after car broke down in live lane

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

A mother-of-five was killed in a horrifying smart motorway crash after her car broke down in a live lane. Nargis Begum, 62, was stationary in her Nissan Qashqai on a stretch of the M1 smart motorway without a hard shoulder, a fact ruled to have played a significant role in the fatal crash.

She died after her car was struck by a Mercedes that appeared to have taken no evasive action. Now, an inquest into her death has heard how the Nissan had driven about 250 yards past an emergency refuge and was stranded in lane one - which was still live - undetected for 16 minutes and 21 seconds before Mrs Begum got out of the passenger seat and the collision happened, Derbyshire Live reports. READ MORE: Queen's funeral Bank Holiday working rules - and whether you'll be given the day off Mrs Begum had been travelling in the car with her husband, who was driving the vehicle, back from Derby back to their home in Sheffield when they suffered a mechanical failure and stopped close to Woodall services, near Chesterfield in North Derbyshire.

In a statement read to the inquest held on Friday, September 9, Mrs Begum’s daughter Saima Aktar, said: “We all believe the smart motorway system is dangerous and flawed.

If there had been a hard shoulder, my dad would have ended up there.” The inquest heard the driver of the Mercedes, Kantrimas Zukauskas, was initially arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving but never prosecuted.