Accident in Croydon

That was nasty, from the pictures it appears that the bus ended up on
the pavement and was corrdored(?) between bollards and shopfronts.
Anyone on the pavement wouldn't have had much chance.

The Mail story says that Police Collision Investigation officers are
looking in to the accident. It's interesting to consider where the
emphasis of investigation of incidents falls when a tram is involved,
given that HMRI is the safety regulator (for want of a better phrase)
of the tram system, and BTP is responsible for policing the system.
This incident would appear to be more of a road traffic accident and
thus fall within the domain of the local (Met) police, however *if*
(and that is a big if) the traffic signals had in some way
malfunctioned then things would become more interesting given the
interface between highway and tramway signalling.

It will be worth keeping an eye on the RAIB site to see if they open an
investigation, though they probably won't if, as you suggest, it was
essentially a road traffic collision.

Peter

It seems to be a slightly out-of-the-ordinary accident - the tram and
bus have ended up quite a way from each other.

According to several eye-witness reports, the bus driver was knocked
unconscious in the collision, but the bus continued running in gear
until brought to a halt when it rammed a parked car. One can only
speculate how worse the tragedy would have been on a weekday.
--
Paul Terry

It will be worth keeping an eye on the RAIB site to see if they open an
investigation, though they probably won't if, as you suggest, it was
essentially a road traffic collision.

The RAIB was also at the back of my mind when I wrote the above but
for some reason not at the front of my mind.

If (big if again) there was any malfunction of traffic signals linked
to the tram system then I presume they'd be very interested indeed,
but that's far from being a known at the moment.

Presumably the road and tram signals are interlinked in some way, to
avoid a tram being sent into the path of cars, or vice versa.

On the other hand, where a tram is running along a road, is there any
need for it to have separate signals? Would it not suffice for it to
have to obey the same red/amber/green traffic lights as other traffic?

Croydon Tramlink doesn't have a signalling system. It's fairer to say
that the traffic light system includes lights targeted at tram
drivers.

As it might have for different lanes of traffic in any case,
presumably, given that trams have their own lanes.

The media are reporting that the driver of the bus has been arrested.

It is also reported that the fatality was a bus passenger, and not a
pedestrian as initial information suggested.

I thought initial reports mentioned 'blood everywhere'?.....only inside the bus then, and likely not even there.

Depends how he left the bus. The doesn't appear to be much of the upper
front window remaining.

I just get in the bus lane and behave like a bus....

This is also my strategy. I'm getting very good at brrrmming noises.

I can ride fast enough, and more to the point accelerate rapidly
enough, that I can outperform buses in urban settings. But then I
don't need the bike lanes in the first place --- fit, alert, knows
what cars do by virtue of having driven them for twenty-five years,
plus the added je ne said quoi have having a few years' motorbike
experience too. My kids, however, don't have many of those
attributes, and things like National Cycle Routes _should_ be aimed at
them: if not for children / the nervous / the inexperienced, what's
the point of traffic engineering the roads in city centres?

ian

Depends how he left the bus. The doesn't appear to be much of the upper
front window remaining.

Well the bus did have an argument with a tram and lost. Given how
mangled the front of the bus is I'd guess the windows just shattered
and fell out on impact. The tram seems fairly intact in the pictures.
Apart from it having derailed you'd never know it had been in an
accident. Must be built a lot stronger than the bus.

B2003