Serious injuries on London's roads 'under reported for years'

The number of people seriously injured on London’s roads has been “gravely under-reported” for years, it was claimed today.

The Greens said changes to how the information is collected by Transport for London suggested that there were many more casualties than previously thought.

Under the new system, which records the type of injury rather than a police officer’s judgment of its severity, 2,500 people were seriously injured or killed in road collisions last year.

The figure appears to have gone up, but transport experts do not believe there has been an actual increase, suggesting that the level of casualties had been under-reported.

Scores of protesters staged a “die-in” outside Kensington town hall last week after teacher Charlotte Landi, 36, became the seventh cyclist to be killed on London’s roads this year.

Green Assembly member Caroline Russell said: “Until now, serious injuries on our roads have been gravely under-reported — London’s streets are much more dangerous than TfL’s reports have been showing.

"Road danger is a crisis for our city and needs urgent action ... The Mayor must bring in lower speed limits, prioritise people over motorised traffic and design healthy streets to enable people to walk and cycle to school, work or the shops in safety.”

The casualties report for 2016 is the first to use a new Met system designed to lead to more accurate and timely reporting of personal injuries following collisions.

In 2016 under the new system, the number of those in the category killed or seriously injured was 2,501 — while in 2015 the same figures under the old system saw 2,092.