The number of car v tram collisions in Croydon are on the increase and management at London Tramlink are warning if the trend continues there could be serious injuries and service delays. Its reported that since 2020 there have been nine collisions and 59 near misses in the car v tram category whilst there have also been 105 emergency stops after pedestrians walked in front of trams.
Mark Davis, London Trams General Manager, said: “We do everything we can to minimise the risks but we can’t eliminate everything. If a car jumps a red light when a tram has right of way, or someone steps out by accident because they have headphones in or are watching something on their phone, trams are forced to apply the emergency brake which brings it to a stop pretty quickly. If someone isn’t sitting down or holding on, they can be injured. There has been a bit of an increase in car versus tram incidents which is why we need to get the message out that jumping red lights is not a particularly safe thing.”
Included in recent incidents, was a collision close to Coombe Lane tramstop on the line out to New Addington on 30th January which saw the car driver and a passenger on the tram having to be taken to hospital. A further collision near to East Croydon saw a tram receive damage requiring repairs and affecting the ability of Tramlink to run a full service due to tram availability.
The London Tramlink fleet has a total of 34 trams available of which 31 are needed each day to run the full timetabled service. When trams receive damage in collisions and need repairs it adds to the pressure on the remaining vehicles and when additional faults develop it isn’t possible for the advertised frequencies to be maintained.