Concerns about the number of road deaths in London in 2024

Dear Andy,

Lack of progress on Vision Zero targets 

I am writing to express my deep concern at the latest provisional Stats19 Road Fatalities in London data published on the Transport for London (TfL) Road Safety Data webpage, which shows that 110 people were killed by motor vehicles on London’s roads in 2024, as demonstrated in this table. 

This is the worst toll of road deaths since 2019 and suggests a step change in action is required to meet the aim in the Mayor’s Transport Strategy that: “by 2041, all deaths and serious injuries will be eliminated from London's transport network”. 

I am particularly concerned that this data reveals that 61 people were killed while walking on London’s roads in 2024, and 13 of these deaths were in October. No other month over the last six years has such a terrible mortality rate.  

These 13 deaths are spread across London over 12 different boroughs (Brent, Enfield, Greenwich, Lambeth, Hammersmith & Fulham, Haringey, Havering, Newham, Richmond, Sutton and Waltham Forest).  

Each of these deaths represents bereavement, trauma and devastating loss to families, friends and colleagues. The victims include: 

• A woman in her fifties hit by two vehicles. 
• A woman in her fifties killed in a crash with a motorcycle. 
• A two-year-old boy killed on the drive outside his home. 
• An 18-year-old woman. 
• A man in his fifties killed five minutes from his home. 
• A woman in her seventies and a man hit by buses in two separate incidents.

The principles underpinning the Vision Zero Action Plan accept that: 

1. People make mistakes, so our transport system needs to accommodate human error and unpredictability.  
2. There are physical limits to what the human body can tolerate. Our transport system needs to be forgiving, so that the impact of a collision is not sufficient to cause fatal or serious injury. 
3. All those with a role in designing, building, operating, managing and using our streets have a responsibility to reduce danger. 

The scale of action required to ensure a safe system on London’s roads where deaths like these are designed out requires Vision Zero to have far greater investment and focus. Therefore, it is incredibly disappointing to see expenditure on Safe and Healthy Streets only increasing in line with inflation in the TfL Budget for 2025-26.  

At the London Assembly Budget Plenary on 23 January 2025, I put forward a budget amendment for an extra £10 million to be invested in more pedestrian crossings. I am well aware this does not reflect the scale of the problem – or the total investment required – but it was a marker that more funding is needed to reduce road death and injury. I hope the Mayor will make good on his commitment to me at the same Plenary when he promised to look again at the 2025-26 budget for TfL to see if more money can be allocated to providing safer junctions. 

As you will recall, at the London Assembly Plenary on 5 September 2024, I told you that: “the interim target for 2022 was missed and we are off trajectory overall for Vision Zero.” The 110 deaths in 2024 on London’s roads are further heart-breaking proof that the Vision Zero Action Plan is falling behind. I have been informed by TfL that the Vision Zero Action Plan 2 is finally underway, and I will make a point of contributing to it prior to its publication in the autumn, with the hope that the ambition and actions within it reflect the scale of the problem. 

Two of the pedestrian deaths in October involved buses. In the Budget Plenary on 23 January 2025, the Mayor did mention actions being taken by TfL to tackle bus driver fatigue. Yet, bus drivers keep raising with me fatigue and distraction related to ongoing rostering patterns, lack of toilet facilities, and poor heating and cooling systems in drivers’ cabs.  

Improving bus driver conditions of work should be a priority for TfL and needs to be addressed via contracts with the bus operators. I would be grateful for a progress update on the recommendations on this in Driven to Distraction - Making London's Buses Safer, from the Transport Committee, published in July 2017.

Enacting Vision Zero means making London’s streets safe for every single Londoner, and especially children, older and disabled people, to walk along and cross the road with the confidence they’ll get home alive that day.  

I look forward to hearing from you. 

Yours sincerely, 

Caroline Russell AM 

Green Party Member of the London Assembly 

cc Mayor of London 

Seb Dance, Deputy Mayor for Transport 

Will Norman, Walking and Cycling Commissioner