Date set for inquest into smart motorway deaths

An inquest into the deaths of two men who died after being struck by an HGV on a stretch of smart motorway on the M1 starts on Monday (18 January).

Jason Mercer and Alexandru Murgeanu had pulled over to exchange details after being involved in a minor road traffic collision when a truck driven by Prezemyslaw Szuba struck them both, in June 2019.

Read more

• New campaign to win over smart motorway sceptics
• Death crash HGV driver jailed but campaign to scrap Smart motorways continues
• Dynamic hard shoulder running on smart motorways to be phased out

At the time, the hard shoulder was being used as an extra lane for traffic and Mercer’s widow Claire has since campaigned for smart motorways to be abolished.

Szuba was jailed for 10 months for causing death by careless or inconsiderate driving, but Claire believes he was not at fault and that Highways England should be prosecuted for corporate manslaughter.

The inquest is expected to last two days.