Flipped: the Honda sports car ended up on its roof after the driver lost control when racing along Woodside Green last night
Residents in Woodside Green were both terrified and relieved last night, after a car that was racing through their neighbourhood crashed into roadside barriers and ended up on its roof in the middle of the public open space.
They were terrified at the prospect of the “carnage” which might have been caused had pedestrians been passing at the time that the car sped out of control on to the green.
And they were relieved that the incident had not occurred just a few hours earlier, when dozens of small children from two nearby primary schools and a nursery might have been making their way home.
The shocking incident is just the latest in a series of high-speed near-misses on Croydon’s roads, where motorists are allowed to ignore all speed limits or common sense, with little prospect of facing any enforcement action.
No one is thought to have been hurt in last night’s crash, as the driver of the flipped Honda S2000, which has a top speed of 150mph, got out of the car and did a runner.
The crash happened around 8.30pm. An eyewitness has told Inside Croydon that the car that crashed appeared to be racing another vehicle on the public road on Woodside Green, the B243. The police were later seen questioning the driver of a second vehicle.
The Honda, kitted out with the noisy exhaust much-liked by boy racers, veered off the road just moments before a bus with several passengers came past.
Aftermath: the driver of the car fled the scene before police arrived at Woodside Green
“The driver lost control, crashing through railings 30 yards on to the green,” the reader told iC.
“The driver ran off. There were police, a fire engine and ambulance in attendance.”
The local said, “There have been several serious speeding accidents in recent months on Woodside Green, Spring Lane and Portland Road.
“It’s just lucky no one has been killed.”
The cars involved in last night’s crash “sped down Woodside Green past Woodside infants school and crashed 400 yards from St Thomas Becket junior school, maybe 100 yards from a nursery.
“If it had happened earlier in the day, it would’ve been carnage,” said the eye-witness.
“Time for speed cameras.”
The Metropolitan Police declined to make a statement when approached by Inside Croydon today, as there were no injuries from the incident and no arrests. So that’s all right then…
Amy Foster is a Labour councillor for Woodside ward, and says she has struggled to get the council to take any action to try to reduce the number of crashes like last night’s, or the potential damage that they might cause.
Foster says that in four years, the council’s highways department has failed even to conduct a site visit to consider public concerns about a hazardous crossing at the junction with Birchanger Road nearby.
“It is upsetting to wake up to photos of yet another serious collision at Woodside Green.
Council inaction: Cllr Amy Foster says she has been seeking a site visit to Woodside for four years
“Reducing road danger is not only about enforcement, it is also about how streets are designed and maintained by local authorities.”
Referring to the unspent £74,000 of funding in the Local Implementation Plan, Foster said, “I believe this reflects the lack of ambition shown by this Conservative administration when it comes to making Croydon’s streets safer.
“That funding could have been used for feasibility studies to explore redesigning junctions like Woodside Green – locations that have seen several collisions in a short period of time.
“I want to understand how we can shift the Council away from a position where safety is judged only by the number of fatalities at a location, to one where it listens to what residents are telling — and showing — us about the dangers on their streets.”
Read more: ‘We live in a danger zone’: locals call for action on speeding
Read more: Croydon is smashing it for hit-and-runs by dangerous drivers
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Why did the driver run away? As the legal system doesn’t treat crime by motorists seriously, they wouldn’t have been punished anyway. With a large piece of evidence on its roof on Woodside Green, even PC Plod in Croydon should catch up the criminal in the end (even if the vehicle was stolen or had cloned number plates) ?!
Oh, we have the car’s reg. As does the police.
But it seems that dangerous or reckless driving, or even possible theft of a motor vehicle, is now considered not as serious a crime as a pensioner holding up a bit of cardboard with “I support Palestine Action” scrawled on it.
Or maybe the police can’t actually arrest anyone without the use of Live Facial Recognition cameras?
The City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council has had Public Space Protection Order against dangerous anti-social drivers for nearly 7 years now.
Closer to home, Enfield Council has a refreshed PSPO against car cruisers.
It’s all very well spending a tiny amount of money on junction improvements, but that won’t address a boroughwide threat to public safety, will it councillor Foster?
Croydon council and police must give us a PSPO against four-wheeled criminals, and rigorously enforce it, before the next victim of road violence dies from shoulder-shrugging ineptitude
I’m old enough to remember when the new Green councillors proposed a sensible amendment at the council budget setting meeting in 2023 to install safe pedestrian crossings at the dangerous junction of Southend, the High Street and Coombe Road. The Labour councillors all abstained and the Conservatives voted against it.
Similar story with the Conservatives axing the school lollipop patrols. Labour’s chair of the scrutiny committee, Rowenna Davis, had the power to call that in for review but just nodded it through.
Best to remember how little some of our elected representatives really care about our safety when they come asking for our vote again in May.
Can’t see how a crossing would have bothered this oik in a ‘souped-up’ car
If only local MP Natasha Irons would put up a “speed visor” at Woodside Green, so that an oik in a ‘souped-up’ car would be able to see they were breaking the speed limit, being too dim to glance at the speedometer right in front of their nose
Installing speed humps along Woodside Green and imposing a 20mph speed limit would reduce the risk of death or serious injury to the 1,000 children attending St Thomas Becket Primary, Woodside Primary and Alpha Day Nursery. I’d happily put up with the minor irritation of speed humps than wait until someone is killed by a speeding driver.