Transport Insights

As the trial of Barry O’Sullivan for allegedly causing the death of Pulvinder Dhillon by careless driving approaches its conclusion, the story gets worse for National Highways, whatever the verdict.

ITV news reports that:

An unresolved technical failure on the M4 smart motorway network meant alerts for broken-down vehicles were not properly communicated in the days leading up to a fatal collision, a court has heard.

The technical malfunction on March 2 2022 was flagged by the system and automatically generated tickets, but they were assigned to the wrong National Highways team and with an incorrect priority level of “7-day resolution”, the court was further told.

This meant the alert system had been malfunctioning for five days when Barry O’Sullivan, 45, crashed his grey Ford Transit Connect into the back of a Nissan Micra that had come to a halt in the fast lane of the motorway on March 7 2022.

It adds:

Ian Bridge, representing O’Sullivan, read excerpts from a National Highways investigation report commissioned after the fatal crash.

“The SVD was available between the 2nd of March to the 7th of March 2022, but the communication failure meant alerts were not presented to the regional operations centre operators,” the report said.

The report also suggested a broken-down vehicle had been detected by radars on the day of the crash but “did not meet the waiting criteria to raise an alert”.

I should add that, according to the Manchester Evening News:

Prosecutor Ian Hope, delivering his closing speech at Reading Crown Court on Monday, said that although “something went wrong” with the smart motorway system, the defendant’s driving still “fell below the standards expected of a competent and careful driver”.

He told jurors: “Even if there were failings alleged, that doesn’t prevent you from being sure that the defendant’s careless driving played more than a minimal part in the death (of Ms Dhillon).”

As I write, the jury has just gone out.