If you’ve been looking forward to smart motorways, you may need to reconsider – especially if you live in the United Kingdom. Plans to roll out smart motorways across England were dealt a fresh blow last night after a widow announced she plans to sue Highways England for corporate manslaughter.
A spate of deaths in the last year have raised recently concerns have been raised about how safe this technology could be after several deaths have occurred while trialling new traffic systems which use smart technologies and strategies to reduce congestion and increase capacity.
These methods include using the hard shoulder as a running lane and ways to control the flow of traffic.
In June, Jason Mercer, 44, was killed when a lorry ploughed into him after he pulled over to exchange contact details with another driver Alexandru Murgeanu aged 22, who was also mown down and killed. Indeed, Four people have been killed on the M1 highway in just 10 months after being hit by traffic in a live lane that used to be the hard shoulder, as the Sunday Telegraph reports.
In each case, the victim died after failing to reach a safe lay-by – also known as an emergency refuge area – on the same 16-mile stretch of the motorway, according to the paper.
