The widow of a 'keen astronomer' who was killed on a smart motorway has sent his ashes into space.<br /><br />Claire Mercer, who has been campaigning for the roads to be banned since husband Jason's death four years ago, says he would have 'loved' the send off.<br /><br />Jason, 44, died alongside Alexandru Murgeanua, 22, after they were hit by a lorry on a stretch of the M1 which doesn't have a hard shoulder.<br /><br />They had stopped in the left-hand lane to exchange insurance details in June 2019 following a minor collision near Sheffield, South Yorks.<br /><br />Lorry driver Prezemyslaw Zbigniew Szuba was jailed for ten months after admitting two counts of causing death by driving without due care and attention.<br /><br />Claire, 47, said: "Jason was a keen astronomer and had a very large telescope in the garden and had a life feed from Nasa running to his computer. <br /><br />"It was his screensaver so the computer was always displaying the latest images.<br /><br />"Originally I said I would have released them when we've won the campaign but it's taking so much longer. <br /><br />"It just started to feel odd keeping his ashes that long when I knew I didn't plan to keep them. <br /><br />"He definitely would have loved the idea. <br /><br />"I'm four years down the line now and I know he's dead and that he's never coming back now. <br /><br />"But what choked me was, is that he had to die to get the trip into space and he would have loved it while he was alive. <br /><br />"It's just amazing to think he went all the way up there."<br /><br />The government announced in April that plans to build 14 new smart motorways had been cancelled over 'the current lack of public confidence felt by drivers.'<br /><br />Claire said she thinks the announcement was a 'massive climbdown for the government' and doesn't see 'how they can justify' keeping the roads. <br /><br />She has also vowed that she will keep campaigning with group Smart Motorways Kill until the government 'give in completely.'<br /><br />Claire, of Rotherham, South Yorks,. added: "I really feel the fact that they aren't going to make anymore smart motorways is a massive climbdown for the government. <br /><br />"I don't see how they can justify keeping existing ones if they are saying new ones are too dangerous. <br /><br />"I'm really hoping they give in soon and accept they've got to give in completely. <br /><br />"I'm not going to stop until they do and I'm just hoping they might give in sooner rather than later. <br /><br />"At the moment, there is just inquest after inquest going on and death after death."<br /><br />Eight months before the fatal collision, Nargis Begum, 62, died on the M1 near Woodall Services in South Yorks,. before the car she was a passenger in, broke down.<br /><br />Nargis and her husband Mohammed Bashir, 69, waited for help by their Nissan Qashqai for around 17 minutes before another vehicle collided with it.<br /><br />At an inquest in September last year, Coroner Nicola Mundy ruled that the lack of a hard shoulder had contributed to Nargis' death.
