Transport correspondent JEREMY CLACKSON on the shocking increases in road collisions – and deaths – in Croydon, as safety improves elsewhere around the country
Smashed: are Croydon’s roads more dangerous, or is it that our drivers are worse than elsewhere in the country?
Croydon has achieved the dubious distinction of having the second-biggest increase in road casualties across London over the last decade, and the highest increase in the capital in the last year – at a time when general trends across the country are for fewer collisions.
Data compiled by the Department for Transport, known as Stats 19, shows that in the 10 years from 2014 to 2023, the capital experienced a drop in “all casualties” – that’s people killed, seriously injured or “just” injured – by 15% to 26,138. In the period 2022 and 2023, the figure fell by 4%.
DfT figures show there were 1,258 road casualties in Croydon in 2023 – a 15% rise from the previous year (1,093). This was the highest figure recorded in the last decade.
In Croydon, 155 people were seriously injured on the roads last year, four of whom died. In 2022, two people died in road collisions in Croydon.
The death and injury toll on Croydon’s roads for children is even more troubling.
Research by Personal Injury Claims UK found that Croydon had the highest number of recorded casualties for child pedestrians in London, with 91 child casualties between 2021 and 2022 (being based on DfT figures covering 304 local authorities in England, from the previous 12-month period).
Children in danger: figures obtained under FoI show that Croydon is consistently, and by far, the worst London borough for traffic collisions affecting children
Transport for London is joining with other major cities around the world in taking a stand to end the toll of deaths and injury seen on their transport networks by committing to something called “Vision Zero”.
The policy was conceived in Sweden 30 years ago, and can be summarised in one sentence: “No loss of life is acceptable”. Based on the simple fact that we are all human and make mistakes, it looks to create an improved road system designed to protect all of us at every turn.
The Mayor of London’s Transport Strategy sets out the goal that, by 2041, all deaths and serious injuries will be eliminated from London’s transport network.
Croydon creates something of a problem in achieving such a target.
Since 2014, the casualties of road violence and road safety indifference have gone up by 144, an increase of nearly 13%. In the years 2022 to 2023, they went up by 165, a shameful 15%.
And road safety campaigners are increasingly concerned that pro-car Perry, the borough’s elected Tory Mayor, is making things worse, and dodging scrutiny as he does so.
As one transport activist told Inside Croydon: “There’s no Vision Zero in Croydon, just zero vision.
“Not only do we have a Mayor who marks his own homework, he chooses the subjects and questions he finds most convenient while ignoring those that protect life and limb.”
Mayor Jason Perry’s 2022-2026 Business Plan for Croydon includes the aspiration that “Croydon is a cleaner, safer and healthier place”, but he is accused of merely paying lip service to such aims.
Vision Zero: London’s road safety targets could be wrecked by Croydon
“There’s a lot of stuff about safety in the business plan, but none of it applies to the streets that people live and travel on. Not a single reference to this issue is among the 80 mayoral indicators.
“It’s no surprise that Perry’s plan to make the Brighton Road cycle lanes even more dangerous follows the sabotage that took place within days of the original scheme being unveiled. Perry made sure that it was set up to fail.”
Scott Roche is Perry’s cabinet member for streets and environment and Croydon’s representative on the London Road Safety Council. That makes him nominally responsible for making Croydon’s roads less lethal. Whether he turns up at any of the LRSC meetings is another matter.
If Roche’s response to public concerns is anything to go by, he doesn’t really care.
For example, in July 2022, when questioned by a South Norwood resident on what he would do to stop dangerous rat-running along Southern Avenue, Roche pointed the finger at Labour for causing the problem by creating a LTN – a low-traffic neighbourhood – and said he’d ask the police to do a bit of enforcement. Er, that’s it.
Meanwhile, while pro-pollution Perry and Roche use road safety as nothing more than something with which to score political points, Croydon’s children, and adult pedestrians, cyclists and all road users, will daily be at risk of losing life and limb.
Read more: Pro-car Perry’s cycle lane ‘vandalism’ could cost council £1m
Read more: Mayor sneaks in night-time parking charges across borough
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
11% of Croydon B & C roads are in need of maintenance. The median equivalent for English local authorities is 4%.
These are 2022-23 statistics.
Poor maintenance dangerous, especially for cyclists.
While potholes are potentially lethal for anyone travelling on two wheels, they aren’t putting child pedestrians lives at risk.
Research by the insurance industry has found that Croydon is in the top 10 of areas across the UK where drivers are uninsured.
Last year the Metropolitan police issued 595,000 fines to drivers caught speeding across London, yet the evidence of our own daily experience shows that many motorists are prepared to run that risk.
Croydon’s roads are dangerous and scary places for people when they aren’t driving. We still have urban motorways where pedestrians are forced to go underground to cross them, and fear being mugged in the process.
At the start of the restaurant strip of South End, the traffic lights at the junction with Coombe Road are for the benefit of those on wheels, not anyone on foot.
The sub-standard cycle lanes that once existed there weren’t improved but removed and replaced with car-parking spaces using riot compensation money. If you want to cycle rather than drive, you’re treated as expendable, a second-class citizen.
Until pedestrians are put at the top of the transport hierarchy, and cyclists second, then Croydon’s highways will remain unnecessarily dangerous places to travel, particularly for children, older people and those with disabilities.
I’ve tried reporting cars that have no Tax or MOT (because they park illegally for long periods on communal land and show up on the enforcement logs from the parking contractors). If they have no tax or MOT then they have no insurance as no one’s allowed to sell insurance without first checking the DVLA database but these cars seem to pootle about just fine. They’re off the road a lot but they move occasionally and are not SORN. Just shunted away on bits of private land so they’re less likely to be spotted. I think the enforcement agencies try but they can only target one area at a time – its a mammoth task… and they can only cover public land. Perhaps if the fines for not being MOTed/Taxed or SORN were more punitive some people might change their behaviour but I think many people now just don’t renew because the fines are cheaper than their insurance. The problem is exacerbated by the abolition of physical tax disks.
There is a massive culture of non compliance in the borough. I’m not one of those helmet-cam cyclists that go around filming people using their phones while driving and reporting it to the police, but if I was, I’d be pretty busy.
“3D” and tinted number plates are everywhere, almost as if it’s a badge of honour to look like you’re going out intending to commit crimes. Police don’t seem to be interested in doing anything about it.
Too many of our high streets and busy pedestrian thoroughfares are still 30mph (inner London boroughs have gone 20 everywhere, having recognised the reduction in injuries in those brave enough to roll it out first), and compliance with the 20 limit seems to be a joke for a lot of people. What’s worse is the aggressive attitude displayed by some drivers to anyone that drives too slowly or has the temerity to walk or cycle. “I’m in a hurry, get out of my way”.
It’s not all on the citizenry though, Croydon is lagging behind in terms of design. Yes cycle lanes, but other boroughs with a similarly meh track record on that have still improved their injury rates. The more pressing issue is major junctions lacking proper crossings for pedestrians – more forward-thinking boroughs have Green Men on all arms of light-controlled junctions as standard, Croydon still has a lot with none at all (Brighton Road) or missing on two of three arms (South Norwood Hill).
Hardly surprising when our Mayor ran a Facebook group used for promoting and celebrating motoring and hate crimes
Some of the alterations to road junctions in Croydon seem designed to cause collisions. One of the worst is at the junction of Sumner road and Mitcham road with Sumner road south. Traffic trying to cross the Mitcham road into Sumner road south have to use the right hand lane at the lights and then cut across the left hand lane in order to enter Sumner road south. The mouth of Sumner road south has been narrowed for the benefit of pedestrians but the footpath has been extended from the wrong side of the road making it even more difficult for vehicles to enter without swinging across in front of their nearside traffic. This was probably well intentioned but would have been better extended from the other side of the mouth of Sumner road south.