Saturday 31 May 2014

Fatality at St Leonard's junction

Around 6.30am this morning there was a fatal road traffic collision at the St Leonard's Junction (Mitcham Lane, Streatham High Road, Gleneldon Road) involving a pedestrian and a motorbike.

This is absolutely tragic. Details have still to fully emerge, but this is a junction which local people have consistently raised as dangerous, and which we have been pushing Transport for London (Tfl) to address. TfL agreed to review the junction in November 2012. After over a year of delays, they finally finished the review in Feb 2014. But they came back with no proposals to make it safer whatsoever, apparently because of budget cuts, which meant money was diverted elsewhere.

Since then we have been working with the police to make the case for action. Police agreed to carry out a risk assessment of the junction, in particular the crossing at the south of the junction where it is clearly unsafe to cross. There is no break in the traffic sequence to allow pedestrians to cross the road safely. Local residents have raised this repeatedly. This was where the latest fatality appears to have occurred.

Yesterday, I met with police to discuss the findings of their risk assessment. They described the junction as "an absolute nightmare". They were also going to do some more work around the junction yesterday afternoon, with some new officers, to raise awareness among drivers.

Sadly, it appears this has come too late for those involved in the Road Traffic Collision this morning.

This is not the first fatality at this junction. It also follows many other collisions there.

Once the details of this latest fatality are released, we will be asking for an urgent meeting with TfL, and present them with the risk assessment that the police have prepared. This junction has to be made safer, and Transport for London must take urgent action.

[Update 13.28 I have spoken to police again at the scene. There are no obvious indications the motorbike was speeding. The pedestrian killed was around 33 years old, on his way to work, and believed to be from Gleneldon Road. It does look at this stage a lot like the dangerous crossing is the main factor in this.]

See also for the history at this junction:

http://www.streathamguardian.co.uk/news/10024077.Crash_causes_injury_and_traffic_chaos/

http://streathamnews.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/safety-review-at-junction-of-mitcham.html

http://streathamnews.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/another-collision-at-tooting-bec.html

http://streathamnews.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/yet-another-collision-at-st-leonards.html

http://streathamnews.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/bus-beached-at-junction-of-streatham.html

http://streathamnews.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/what-could-be-done-about-junction-of.html

http://streathamnews.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/response-from-tfl-about-st-leonards.html

4 comments:

  1. This may or may not be relevant.

    As I driver I try to avoid coming out of Tooting Bec Gardens to turn south into Streatham High Road. You have two lanes of traffic turning right and, at the same time, filtering into a single lane. Drivers are focussed on getting their filter position and not so much on pedestrians crossing by Royal China.

    There's also a problem on Tooting Bec Gardens with vehicles rushing up the usually empty right-hand lane (for turning right into Mitcham Lane) and then, just before the lights at the St Leonard's junction, pushing for a place in the middle lane - a situation which often produces confrontations.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Angus - I think both points are highly relevant.

    What some drivers have even taken to doing now on Tooting Bec Gardens is going down the right hand lane (for Mitcham Lane), and not cutting back in but going right through the lights, and only then turning left to go across the St Leonard's junction illegally. This means they go across the pedestrian crossing between Tooting Bec Gardens and Time2Move, when the Green man is showing and pedestrians are crossing. I've witnesses several near misses.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Angus is completely right. The green man crossing outside Royal China is just horrendous to cross as a pedestrian. That whole junction is an absolute disgrace, basically. Acres of tarmac and no pedestrian space at all.

    ReplyDelete
  4. When is this hideous junction going to be corrected? There not even a pedestrian indicator at the crossing from Glenelden Road to the bus stop in Mitcham Lane. No wonder - there is no pedestrian period in the traffic light sequence!

    ReplyDelete