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The widow of the man who died when a truck collided with his car parked on a smart highway has said the wrong person has been jailed.
Jason Mercer, 44, and Alexandru Murgeanu, 22, were killed when a truck driven by Prezemyslaw Szuba collided with their vehicles, which had stopped on a stretch of the M1 with no hard shoulder after a “minor bypass.”
At Sheffield Crown Court on Monday, the 40-year-old received a 10-month sentence.
Prezemyslaw Szuba received a 10-month sentence
Judge Jeremy Richardson told Szuba he had to take most of the blame for the accident, adding: “If there had been a shoulder or the victims had driven an extra mile to the shelter, this catastrophe would never have happened.
“However, there should be no doubt that the main cause of this fatal accident was his inattention to the road ahead.”
But Claire Mercer, who has led a prominent campaign against smart highways, said: “We don’t believe the right person is taking responsibility for this massive detrimental effect on the lives of us and so many others.”
“The events of June 7, 2019 would not have taken place if there had been a shoulder and Highways England had run with the right priorities in mind, not focusing on who wins the next big deal.”
And referring to a national review of smart highways, he said: “An agenda genuinely concerned with preventing future deaths is not met with a fictitious review and 18 commitments that would not have saved any of the more than 40 people killed by smart highways, or by incarcerating the wrong person. “
The judge was told that Szuba was driving well within the speed limit, that he had not drunk or used drugs, and that he was not distracted by any device when he collided with the men’s vehicles north of Junction 34, near Sheffield’s Meadowhall shopping center.
Claire Mercer spoke of the heartbreaking loss of her husband
Mercer and Murgeanu had stopped in lane one to inspect the damage and exchange details after their minor collision.
Jeremy Evans, the accuser, said police calculated that the stopped vehicles would have been visible for 7.4 seconds when Szuba’s truck turned a slight curve, and he would have had between 3.7 and 5.2 seconds to react.
Police used images to calculate that 147 vehicles in lanes one and two managed to maneuver around the stranded cars, but the prosecutor said that Szuba was traveling at a constant speed of 56 mph until the last moment before the crash, and did not brake or move. your vehicle. .
Andrew Smith, in defense, said: “The defendant has always accepted that his negligence, his lack of concentration of three, four, five seconds before was a major cause of this accident. But it was not the only cause.”
Urging the judge not to incarcerate his client, Smith added: “He just didn’t see it. He should have seen it and he didn’t.”
Smith also described smart highways as “just plain unsafe.”
The judge said the two men had made a “reckless” decision to stop, but said it was “understandable” given the stress of having such a collision on the highway.
He added: “I have no idea what research was done when the decision was made to remove the hard shoulder on certain smart highways, but I can’t help but think that putting shelters at intervals of almost three miles or even every one and a half mile is a less than ideal or adequate substitute for a hard shoulder. “
Szuba has also been banned from driving for four years.
