Questions raised over TfL safety - Ross Lydall explains
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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.