Overview

• The prevention of future deaths report published on June 18, 2025, found that 153 drivers passed Nargis Begum’s broken-down car on an All Lanes Running section of the M1 without alerting National Highways or emergency services within 16 minutes and 21 seconds.
• Senior Coroner Nicola Mundy identified three concerns for National Highways: poor public understanding of how to call for help, insufficient emphasis on road user responsibility to report stationary vehicles, and low prioritization of this message during the smart motorway rollout.
• Inquest evidence indicated that stationary vehicle detection technology is estimated to spot at least 80 percent of halted cars in a timely manner, but drivers’ reliance on cameras alone left stranded motorists at risk.
• National Highways has run a major eCall awareness campaign since 2021, secured updates to The Highway Code advising SOS button use, and released smart motorway safety stocktake reports in 2021 and 2022.
• The agency has pledged to study additional awareness measures and to install over 150 new emergency areas on all-lanes-running smart motorways by the end of 2025.