Questions raised over TfL safety - Ross Lydall explains - video Dailymotion

Questions raised over TfL safety - Ross Lydall explains

Transcript

00:00How safe is the capital's transport network? This is the serious question being asked today

00:06of TfL Commissioner Andy Lord and the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.

00:11It's no consolation to me that last year was the lowest number of deaths and serious injuries

00:18aside from the pandemic, because there were still too many people being hurt and seriously

00:22injured, so we've got to make sure we improve. At the same time, when things do go wrong,

00:27we can't and we mustn't, and we never should, victim blame.

00:31Campaigners, including people who have been injured by tube trains, by buses and who have

00:36lost friends or relatives to London bus crashes, have joined forces to reveal the full extent

00:43of the number of people injured on the London public transport network each year. The numbers

00:48run into thousands and they believe that these numbers have not been properly reported or

00:52interrogated and that these are not isolated incidents, but there are links between each

00:58incident that requires proper attention right from the top of TfL.

01:03So in terms of the London underground, the figures are quite scary and we looked at an

01:12average of 1,600 incidents over the past decade, annually, and that equates to an average of

01:22133 incidents a month. That is way too much.

01:29What is it that you'd like to see the TfL Commissioner Andy Lord and the Mayor Sadiq

01:34Khan do to address the issues you've raised today?

01:38I think the first instance is to realise that there is an issue, to not be arrogant and

01:48say, oh no, this can't be happening, this is the victim's fault, is to realise that

01:54this is systemic, that this is institutionalised, that there is a demand of commuters, a right

02:04for them to be in a safe environment when they travel.

02:07Embarrassingly for TfL, one of those speaking out is Sarah Hope. She's given her name to

02:12the Sarah Hope line, which aims to give support to victims of crashes and various other

02:18serious incidents across the network. Sarah was badly injured in a bus crash at Mortlake

02:24more than a decade ago, as was her young daughter, and her mother was killed. But now Sarah says

02:30she has concerns that safety is not a big enough priority at Transport for London.

02:34We're very concerned that TfL are not really reporting the amount of people that are hurt

02:40and injured and fatalities on the whole of the London transport network, because that's

02:48very, very important that they report on those things.

02:50On the wider issue of safety on the TfL network, what would you like the TfL Commissioner and

02:56the Mayor, Sadiq Khan, to do?

02:58I would like them to start listening to the issues that have been raised today. So ultimately,

03:08people matter, and we need the number of bad things that are happening to people on the

03:12network to stop. They've adopted Vision Zero as a big campaign, and they must look to

03:19Vision Zero, and it must be the most ultimately important thing that they do.