SIGNS which automatically detect changes in traffic and alert drivers to possible hazards are to be installed at the M5 at Taunton.

The Highways Agency has decided to put up Motorway Incident Detection Automatic Signalling (MIDAS) between Junctions 25 and 23 (Burnham) following the horrific motorway crash near Taunton in which seven people died on November 4 three years ago.

A further 51 people were injured in a 37-vehicle pile-up not far from a fireworks display at Taunton Rugby Club, although West Somerset Coroner Michael Rose ruled at an inquest that smoke from that display did not cause an area of reduced visibility leading up to the tragic accident, But the agency will not be putting in fog detection systems because “there are no roadside systems that will prevent collisions from occurring, but there are systems that can reduce their likelihood and potentially prevent secondary incidents”.

Highways Agency divisional director, in a letter to West Somerset Coroner Michael Rose, said: “It remains our professional view that fog detectors would not have prevented these collisions.

“They occurred within an area of reduced visibility and therefore it was this reduced visibility that led to drivers being disorientated.”

The Minister for Employment Relations and Consumer Affairs Jo Swinson told Mr Rose she attaches “a high priority to ensuring safety at public firework displays”.

She said she planned to meet with then fireworks industry, training providers and the Health and Safety Executive to discuss legal requirements for the training of people running fireworks displays.

But she said she believed that enforced licensing of display operators is “impractical and...offers no significant safety benefits above an effective system of training”.