ANGELA Farren had the grim distinction of being the first person to be killed on the M65 motorway extension just four days after it opened.

But evidence at the inquest into her tragic death strongly suggests that it need never have been so.

For, after her van ran out of petrol, she was killed when she was hit by four cars while walking in the dark along an unlit stretch of the new motorway that was described as being like a "black hole."

There was no lighting because, apart from local residents' concerns, the authorities had also responded to nationally-conducted campaigns against "light pollution." And, in considering the balance of safety and intrusion on the environment and coming down against installing lights, Coroner Howard McCann says, quite bluntly, that they got it wrong.

We agree. For no matter how much lighting may impinge on residents' comfort or the environment, there is no greater blot on either of those values than someone being needlessly killed.

Let there be no more. Lighting should be urgently installed.

And, for extra safety, the hard shoulder on the motorway should be made a different colour from the carriageway.

That was a provision Lancashire wisely made at the start of the motorway age and there is no good reason for abandoning it.

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