{"id":33080,"date":"2021-03-04T13:55:39","date_gmt":"2021-03-04T13:55:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shefnews.co.uk\/?p=33080"},"modified":"2021-03-04T13:55:39","modified_gmt":"2021-03-04T13:55:39","slug":"widow-slams-highways-england-for-husbands-smart-motorway-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shefnews.co.uk\/index.php\/2021\/03\/04\/widow-slams-highways-england-for-husbands-smart-motorway-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Widow slams Highways England for husband’s smart motorway death"},"content":{"rendered":"

Justin Mercer would have turned 46 this week had it not been for the tragic accident that occurred on a smart motorway on 7 June 2019.<\/p>\n

His widow, Claire Mercer, has been campaigning with Smart Motorways Kill<\/a> against Highways England ever since giving up her job in her efforts to get justice and much-needed closure.<\/p>\n

Her latest campaigning effort was to put up a billboard outside the South Yorkshire Police Headquarters in an effort to make them take her seriously.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Image from the Smart Motorways Kill Facebook page<\/p><\/div>\n

She said: \u201cI have been pushing the police for over a year now to investigate Highways England for corporate manslaughter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey put a year into investigating the driver of the HGV that killed Jason, but he\u2019s only done it once, Highway England have now done it 44 times.\u201d<\/p>\n

Government statistics in January showed that 38 people had been killed on smart motorways in the past five years.<\/p>\n

The man behind the initiative, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, said that he went about the wrong way in solving the problem.<\/p>\n

He said: \u2018It was entirely wrong to build a so-called smart motorway without the technology in place to make it safer.\u201d<\/p>\n

‘Stopped Vehicle Detection’, the technology that was supposedly brought in to fix the issue, spots if a car or vehicle is stopped and will aim to lessen the chance of accidents.<\/p>\n

Mr Shapps has pledged to complete the roll-out of SVD on existing schemes by the end of next year.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Photo by Ross Sneddon on Unsplash<\/p><\/div>\n

Ms Mercer, however, is convinced that the only solution is to scrap the smart motorways altogether.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cThe stopped vehicle detection won\u2019t do enough. It doesn\u2019t work properly, it only works in what it considers optimum conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also pointed out that not only is the initiative causing accidents, but it also is hindering emergency services in getting to the accident site in time.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll this technology, all those radars none of this helps emergency services. When there\u2019s four lanes of traffic an ambulance can\u2019t get through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking about the next steps in the campaign she said: \u201cI\u2019m going to really keep the focus on prosecuting Highways England. We know the danger of smart motorways, it\u2019s not manslaughter anymore it\u2019s murder. They just don\u2019t care. Maybe if their personal liberty is put at risk they will care.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Claire Mercer’s husband died in 2019 and blames his demise on the new technology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":201,"featured_media":33105,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[27,21,50,82],"tags":[160,274,275,49],"class_list":["post-33080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime","category-news","category-politics","category-top-story","tag-campaign","tag-motoring","tag-motorways","tag-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nWidow slams Highways England for husband's smart motorway death - ShefNews<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/shefnews.co.uk\/index.php\/2021\/03\/04\/widow-slams-highways-england-for-husbands-smart-motorway-death\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Widow slams Highways England for husband's smart motorway death - 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