Lack of driver awareness of stationary vehicles on smart motorways
National Highways received 2 coroners' reports about this hazard between 19 Jan 2021 and 16 Sept 2022.
They came from 2 different coroners in 2 coroner areas. A similar concern was raised again 1 time after the first warning.
A published response was found for 1 of the 1 earlier reports, stating 1 specific action.
The story, report by report
Spacing grows with the time between reports.
“The need for better driver awareness on the use of smart motorways”
Original on judiciary.uk ↗ National Highways responded, stating 1 specific action.Response (PDF) ↗Response (PDF) ↗
“Highways England will publish this report shortly”
Stated timescale: shortly
Web search (Tavily): Evidence found that the action was carried out
Smart motorways stocktake ↗- 1 year 8 months laterClosely relatedConfidence 0.90 · higha different coroner
“(1) The lack of public understanding regarding the need for them to call National Highways should they identify a problem on the motorway network such as a stationary vehicle.”
Original on judiciary.uk ↗ National Highways responded.Response (PDF) ↗
- All reports to National Highways
Each row is one judged link between an earlier and a later report. Open a row to read both quotes, found word for word in the originals.
2021 → 2022Nargis Begum1 year 8 months after Alexandru Murgeanu and Jason Mercer · different coronerClosely relatedConfidence 0.90 · high
Closely relatedConfidence 0.90 · highBoth reports highlight insufficient driver awareness or response to stationary vehicles on smart motorways. The earlier report stresses the need for better awareness and identification, while the later report notes that despite campaigns, road users are not adequately emphasised to report such problems.
Alexandru Murgeanu and Jason Mercer · 19 Jan 2021
“The need for better driver awareness on the use of smart motorways”
Original on judiciary.uk ↗ Nargis Begum · 16 Sept 2022
“(1) The lack of public understanding regarding the need for them to call National Highways should they identify a problem on the motorway network such as a stationary vehicle.”
Original on judiciary.uk ↗ Stated action in the response to the earlier report
“Highways England will publish this report shortly”
Stated action · timescale: shortly
“Highways England will publish this report shortly”
What happened next: Evidence found that the action was carried out
National Highways confirmed delivery of the stocktake report and its findings on smart motorway safety.
“Smart motorways stocktake Fourth year progress report: December 2024 Contents 03 Foreword 05 Executive summary 10 Smart motorway features 12 Stocktake action summary 19 Updated safety evidence 50 Conclusion 51 Annex A - Smart motorways map 52 Annex B - Methodology 93 Annex C - Detailed tables 94 Annex D - Detailed collision data 95 Annex E - Before versus after- Detailed tables Contents 96 Annex F”
“National Highways publish Smart Motorways Stocktake - Third Year Progress Report In the third progress report since the 2020 Action Plan, National Highways confirm it has now delivered on all actions planned to be completed to date, and provided evidence that, in most cases, smart motorways are safer than the roads they replaced.”
No specific action could be extracted with a verified quote.
No specific action could be extracted with a verified quote.
- Each report's concerns were extracted by Nemotron 3 Nano on Nebius Token Factory, each with a quote copied from the report.
- Concerns from reports to National Highways at least six months apart were compared by meaning (Qwen3 embeddings) and wording (TF-IDF).
- The closest pairs were judged by Nemotron 3 Super with reasoning on. Only identical or closely related, with confidence of at least 0.70, are shown.
- Every quote was checked by code as an exact substring of the original text. Names of staff and family are redacted, and the deceased are named by report title only.
| Link | Meaning | Wording | Judge | Coroner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 → 2022 | 0.78 | 0.17 | Closely related · 0.90 | different |
Judge model: nvidia/nemotron-3-super-120b-a12b. How Nemotron did the work · Full methodology.
Next
Other chains for National Highways
- Standing water on road leading to hydroplaning5 reports · 2016–2026
- Inadequate drainage leading to water accumulation on carriageway2 reports · 2022–2026
- Missing pedestrian crossing on busy ring road3 reports · 2015–2026
- Raised obstruction on road surface leading to loss of control2 reports · 2016–2025
This shows that a similar concern was raised again after an earlier report. It does not say why, and it is not a finding about any organisation or person. To report an error, see the corrections route.