CLAIRE MERCER is photographed at the spot where her husband was killed on a ...

Last Friday, when I posed for the photograph that accompanies this article at the bridge overlooking the junction on the M1 where my husband Jason was killed, I heard from behind me a sickening thud. It was a collision between a car and a lorry on the other side of the road.

A lorry had slammed into a car and dragged it hundreds of yards down the carriageway. I was in shock: my own husband, after all, had died on the opposite side of the same stretch of road.

Could there possibly have been a more visceral and painful reminder of how dangerous the craze for smart motorways has become?

Motorways are always dangerous and unpredictable: they need a dedicated, protected space where drivers can shelter from the hazards around them, especially after a minor accident or a breakdown.

This should be obvious but for too long, ministers have tried to bury their heads in the sand over the issue.

That is why the Mail's seminal undercover investigation, published today, is so important.

The 'smart' motorway – lauded by government and road bosses alike as both efficient and safe – is literally lethal and riddled with ongoing, deeply serious failures.

As the Mail reveals today, many cameras are either broken, faulty or simply not monitored, leaving motorists who have broken down or stopped for any reason stranded in deadly high-speed traffic.

Staggeringly, one in ten cameras was found to be faulty out of more than 800 devices nationwide.

Worse still, almost half the cameras on one of the busiest sections of the M25 – where three deaths have been attributed to smart motorways – were faulty. On the day of the audit, one in four cameras was broken on the stretch of the M1 near Sheffield where Jason died.

Overall, the toll speaks for itself: figures from Highways England [now known as National Highways] show that between

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