Man charged over M1 smart motorway deaths after collision near Sheffield

Prezemyslaw Zbigniew Szuba, aged 40, of Kingston Upon Hull, has been charged with causing death by careless or inconsiderate driving after a collision on the M1, which claimed two lives in June 2019.

Emergency services were deployed to a three-vehicle collision on the northbound carriageway near Junction 34, just north of the Tinsley Viaduct, at around 8.15am on June 7, 2019.

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A silver Ford Focus, a silver Ford transit van and a lorry were involved in the smash and two men – 44-year-old Jason Mercer, from Broom, Rotherham and 22-year-old Alexandru Murgeanu, from Mansfield, were pronounced dead at the scene.

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Szuba will appear at Sheffield Magistrates Court in September 2020.

An investigation into the collision established that Mr Mercer and Mr Murgeanu had been involved in a minor crash and had pulled over to exchange details when a second collision occurred.

The first crash happened on a stretch of smart motorway where there is no hard shoulder.

Mr Mercer’s wife has since started campaigning against smart motorways in the wake of his death.

They were introduced to allow motorists to drive in all the lanes to help traffic flow.

Mrs Mercer is fighting for hard shoulders to be reintroduced.

She claims Highways England does not have adequate technology to detect stranded vehicles and divert traffic on stretches of motorways where hard shoulders have been turned into extra lanes to reduce congestion.