CROYDON COMMENTARY: City Hall and our borough Town Hall are being petitioned over a busy junction that lacks a safe crossing place for pedestrians, as PETER UNDERWOOD explains
Safer crossing: Assembly Member Caroline Russell on her visit to Croydon last month
In my lifetime there have been major advances in road safety. From compulsory seatbelts to airbags, to side impact protection, drivers and passengers in vehicles have become far more protected and far more likely to survive a collision.
But over that period there is one group who haven’t seen the same increases in protection. In some ways, they are being put in more danger. That’s pedestrians who are hit by vehicles.
The latest road danger figures make grim reading. In 2023, there were 49 pedestrians killed by drivers in London – that’s nearly one every week.
In addition, more than 4,500 pedestrians were injured by being hit by a vehicle. Of those, more than 800 were children (under 16). Four of those children were killed.
The number of people killed last year was up from 41 in 2022. The number of people seriously injured was also up, from 1,194 in 2022 to 1,225 in 2023.
So how do we get these numbers down and make our streets safer?
There are big strategies like the Mayor of London’s Vision Zero, that aims to eradicate deaths and serious injuries from London’s roads, which should be applauded for its ambition.
City Hall questions: the Lower Coombe Street crossing has been raised with Mayor Khan
There are also the campaigns to bring in 20mph speed limits on more roads that not only reduce collisions, but the lower speeds also reduce the chances of death or serious injury in those collisions.
And there are also campaigns to tackle local problems that put pedestrians at risk. One such campaign here in Croydon is to install a Pelican crossing at the junction of Lower Coombe Street and the High Street.
Marley King is leading this campaign: “I’ve lived in this area with my children for a number of years now and I know how dangerous crossing these roads can be. We used to have to cross this road every day when my children were at primary school.
“Drivers seem obsessed with just getting where they want to go as quickly as possible and have no regard for pedestrians. You have to take your life in your hands just to get to the other side of the road.”
King is being supported by Fairfield ward’s Green Party councillors Ria Patel and Esther Sutton. The dangers of this crossing have been raised by lots of residents and they are working to get this raised at Croydon Council.
The campaign has also been picked up by London Assembly Member Caroline Russell, who came to Croydon and talked to people trying to cross the road at this junction.
“There are far too many junctions in London where TfL provides signals for motor traffic without offering any help for people to cross the road,” Russell said.
Unanimous verdict: a street poll conducted by Green councillors found everyone wants a safer crossing
“So many of the people we spoke with made it very clear that they have lots of reason for wanting to cross the road at the junction of the High Street with Lower Coombe Street and it is frustrating that there is no protected time for people to cross the road safely.
“If the Mayor is going to meet his targets for 80% of journeys to be made on foot by bike and by public transport, then he needs to get on with installing safe crossings at places like this.”
Russell has already raised this issue with the Mayor of London and there are two petitions running to keep the pressure on – one for Croydon Council and another for the Mayor of London. Please sign both to support installing a safer crossing at this junction.
This is just one campaign to make one junction safer and it would be good to see other campaigns around similar problem areas.
We are all pedestrians on our streets at some point and so we need to keep pushing to make our streets safer. Our lives, and the lives of our children, depend on it.
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