The mayor’s ambition is to eliminate all deaths and serious injuries from the capital’s roads by 2041, reports Noah Vickers, Local Democracy Reporter

Sadiq Khan has been asked to lobby the government to create a ‘road safety investigation branch’ to closely examine deaths and injuries caused by vehicle collisions.

In a unanimous, cross-party vote at City Hall earlier this month, the mayor was urged by the London Assembly to raise the idea with ministers, amid concerns over the number of people still being killed each year on the capital’s road network.

According to Transport for London (TfL), there were 95 people killed and 3,615 people seriously injured on London’s road network in 2023. This was down from 102 deaths and 3,859 serious injuries in 2022.

The mayor’s ambition, set out in his ‘Vision Zero’, is to eliminate all deaths and serious injuries from the capital’s roads by 2041.

But Green assembly member Caroline Russell has pointed out that there is a disparity when it comes to investigating road deaths, compared with those on the railway network.

For the latter, accidents are independently investigated by the Rail Accident Investigation Branch, which produces a comprehensive report detailing what went wrong and what action should be taken to prevent repeat episodes.

No such body exists for accidents caused by road vehicles, leading Russell to put forward a motion on 7th November calling on the mayor to lobby for an equivalent body for road deaths and injuries. The idea was backed by all parties on the assembly.

Asked last week about it, the mayor told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) he had not seen the motion, saying: “I’m sure that will come to me in due course. I’ll look at it.”

Pressed on why he was not aware, given that it was agreed almost two weeks previously, he said: “The bad news is I receive more than one letter to my office a day, but I’ll wait and see the motion when I see it.”

The motion also asked Khan to “urgently prioritise bringing forward” an updated version of his Vision Zero strategy.

He said: “We’ve got a Vision Zero policy. Last year we had the lowest numbers of deaths and serious injuries [on London’s roads] since records began, since [with the exception of] the pandemic. I’m incredibly proud of our record.

“By the way, many of the assembly are against our policies of 20mph on our streets, many MPs are [too]… Many assembly members are against school streets. Many assembly members and MPs are against walking and cycling.

“I’m really proud that in this most recent budget from the government, I secured almost double the money for capital spending for TfL compared to last year. That will help us [to] improve streets in London. Londoners know that when I’m the mayor, I work with councils and others to keep our streets safe.

“I’m not going to apologise for not seeing a motion. If you’re criticising me for not seeing a motion, that’s up to you.”

A spokesperson for Khan later contacted the LDRS with the following additional comment: “Every death or serious injury on our streets is devastating, bringing heartache and tragedy to all those involved and the mayor remains committed to his Vision Zero goal.

“Significant progress has already been made to make our streets safer including the bus safety standard, expansion of the Cycleways network, 20mph speed limits, and the victim support pilot.

“Last year was the lowest year on record for people being killed on our roads excluding 2020 and 2021, which were heavily affected by pandemic-related lockdowns and changes in travel patterns.

“However, while significant progress is being made, the mayor recognises further action is needed to eliminate deaths and serious injuries from London’s streets. We are updating our Vision Zero action plan and will publish the new plan early next year.”

She said that the mayor’s office will look in detail at the motion, before deciding whether to lobby for a road safety investigation branch.

In 2022, the last Conservative government proposed creating a branch of the same name, specifically to investigate road collisions, but confirmed in January this year that it had dropped the plan.

In the days immediately following the general election in July, a Freedom of Information request was submitted to the Department for Transport, asking whether Labour would take the idea forwards.

The response stated that the new government is “currently in the process of reviewing all potential road safety interventions following the election”. It added: “Once we have worked with the ministerial team to take stock of these, we will look to prioritise policies that fix things quickly and have the biggest impact on the safety of our roads.”

The mayor’s Vision Zero strategy also commits to zero deaths caused by buses in London by 2030, but Private Eye magazine recently reported that ten such deaths have occurred in 2024 so far, up from six in the whole of 2023.

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