During my career in the fire brigade i served at New Addington for 15 years and attended quite a few tram incidents including fatalities so can fully appreciate what today's incident will have been like. RIP to those who lost their lives and condolences to their families
good post .. are you saying that incidents on the tram system are quite/comparatively common .. and fatalities ? .. I no longer live in South London but even so have not heard of this before .. to your knowledge, have improvements/changes been made to the tram infrastructure/working protocols after these incidents ?
When the tram system was originally built we had quite a few accidents including fatalities I'm afraid. I think the system was originally based on a system from northern Ireland, one day we had a meeting at Addington fire station which included a delegation from Northern Ireland ,Croydon councillors and ourselves. One of the points of concern we raised was just how quiet the trams were, an elderly woman had recently been killed directly opposite the station while crossing the tracks to get to the opposite platform. Apparently she looked left and saw a tram approaching and stepped onto the tracks where she was hit by a tram coming from the opposite side, she simply never heard it approaching. Despite the best efforts of ourselves and London ambulance service including paramedics from the helicopter service she died. When we asked if trams could be fitted with some sort of device that could be heard when they were approaching tram stops we were told that the trams were designed to be as quite as possible so as not to disturb local residents who lived nearby. So basically it is down to the individual person crossing to look both ways. Another time we were called to an incident where a tram had hit a bus and spun the bus round like a toy fortunately no fatalities. At least four occasions i attended incidents where car's collided with a tram these did involve fatalities. As to weather the trams are safer now i believe that they are but wherever you have a system that allows the public to walk across the tracks and for traffic to cross the tracks you will always have the potential for accident I'm afraid
One of the guys that used to work at our station, retained, was an investigator for the RAIB. He showed us and talked us through train incidents for training purposes, included in these was a man getting run down by a tram. Although his head hit and broke the glass over the forward facing camera he survived with severe bruising.
Use the tram for work each day. This is tragic and my thoughts are with all those affected by this terrible incident. That particular bend is very sharp, absolutely no margin for error.
Extraordinary loss of life and lengthy injury list for what always appeared to be a very safe form of transport. Massive sympathy to friends and loved ones. The kind of thing that could happen to anyone.
People just don't get the dangers of speed do they? Day in day out I see cars doing 50mph plus outside my son's school - which happens to be on a bend with dim lighting to boot. At the end of the road cars have to queue at traffic lights so absolutely nothing gained in driving so fast. Would love to see a police presence with speed guns but that isn't going to happen and the Council are more concerned with imposing parking tickets than putting any resource into this.
The driver will have to live with this the rest of his life. As will all such killers. But they are still alive and do have a choice if they do want to end it. The victims never did.
Hold on, we don't know the full facts yet. One survivor said he went to the driver in the mayhem after and the driver said he just blacked out.
For his sake I hope that there are passengers who witnessed him blacking out as he travelled at 50mph before he succeeded in coming round in time to apply the brakes which caused the tram to crash at "just" 43.5mph.
They have a deadman's handle, but not the systems to automatically stop a vehicle going too fast or through a red signal that the Tube has, or indeed the automatic control that the DLR has
Hold on, we don't know the full facts yet. One survivor said he went to the driver in the mayhem after and the driver said he just blacked out.
For his sake I hope that there are passengers who witnessed him blacking out as he travelled at 50mph before he succeeded in coming round in time to apply the brakes which caused the tram to crash at "just" 43.5mph.
Well thats the whole point of the investigation isn't? To wait until the full facts are known. IF he's guilty then he deserves a lifetime of pain.
Would seem to indicate that there was insufficient signage. 20kph sign is 30m before the bend, but travelling at network speed limit of 80kph, a driver would need to start applying brakes at 180m before the bend to achieve the 20kph speed limit at the recommended maximum braking force (presumably the trams can stop a lot quicker if need be, but the recommended braking would most likely be so that it was a comfortable rate of deceleration for any passengers).
This would seem to rely on the driver knowing both where the bend was and the speed limit well in advance of any signage being visible. Disaster waiting to happen springs to mind, especially with the other reports of trams going round that corner on "two wheels", etc.
Surely the minimum signage requirement should be that there's a sign at the point when the driver needs to apply the brakes to meet the speed limit without exceeding the recommended braking force. Can only see TFL getting a massive fine here, they don't operate the trams, but are responsible for them, the track and the signage.
Hold on, we don't know the full facts yet. One survivor said he went to the driver in the mayhem after and the driver said he just blacked out.
For his sake I hope that there are passengers who witnessed him blacking out as he travelled at 50mph before he succeeded in coming round in time to apply the brakes which caused the tram to crash at "just" 43.5mph.
Well thats the whole point of the investigation isn't? To wait until the full facts are known. IF he's guilty then he deserves a lifetime of pain.
Whatever the outcome the authorities/tram operators will be able to do something about this albeit "after the horse has bolted". But all the road accidents in the world haven't, as I say, stopped people driving at silly speeds.
In 2015 there were:
1,732 reported road deaths
The number of people seriously injured in reported road traffic accidents was 22,137
There was a total of 186,209 casualties of all severities
reading the interim report it does say that the brakes were applied at the approach to the bend , but only enough to slow it down to around 70 kmh. So the driver could have blacked out just as he started applying the brakes...........
as stated above - lets wait for the full report before hanging the driver.
Call me cynical but the line " I blacked out" seems to me an excuse made up to try and cover the fact he was going to fast around the bend and so blaming his actions on it.
Comments
Now seven dead
This is tragic and my thoughts are with all those affected by this terrible incident.
That particular bend is very sharp, absolutely no margin for error.
A 19 year old named as the first fatality, dreadful.
RIP
going at 43.5 mph almost three times the limit
Really sucks that you can go to work in the morning and never see your loved ones again.
Was this the same driver? Or.
We're the drivers having an in house competition between themselves as to who could get round the bend fastest?
However, a member of the public reported a tram doing 40mph the previous week and that was a different driver.
The driver will have to live with this the rest of his life. As will all such killers. But they are still alive and do have a choice if they do want to end it. The victims never did.
RIP
https://www.gov.uk/raib-reports/fatal-tram-accident-croydon
This would seem to rely on the driver knowing both where the bend was and the speed limit well in advance of any signage being visible. Disaster waiting to happen springs to mind, especially with the other reports of trams going round that corner on "two wheels", etc.
Surely the minimum signage requirement should be that there's a sign at the point when the driver needs to apply the brakes to meet the speed limit without exceeding the recommended braking force. Can only see TFL getting a massive fine here, they don't operate the trams, but are responsible for them, the track and the signage.
In 2015 there were:
1,732 reported road deaths
The number of people seriously injured in reported road traffic
accidents was 22,137
There was a total of 186,209 casualties of all severities
as stated above - lets wait for the full report before hanging the driver.