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Bus crashes into tree branch on Tower Bridge Road. One dead, several injured. Talk abounds of "freak" accident.
Well, yes and, perhaps, no. Maybe it was some kind of amazing freak occurrence where no-one could be blamed. But more likely it's a combination of two main factors:
1) Bus drivers in London are trained far more poorly than they were 20 years ago. This driver may have been completely innocent of any error, but that doesn't deny the argument. You only have to walk any distance in London streets these days to see evidence of the deterioration in driving quality -- increased aggression, more excessive breaking and accelerating, more lane-weaving and less patience.
2) Council maintenance services have deteriorated. Councils are so worried about paying the pensions of their ex-workers and the wages of their current workers that the actual provision of services that don't appear to be vital to life and limb have fallen by the wayside. We've had a very rainy and sunny period in London and all of the plants and foliage are growing like mad. A road that was safe on Monday might become dangerous by Tuesday. Plant maintenance is not high on the list of priorities at council meetings. If the tree that was struck had been cut back, the death of this woman might not have happened. The responsibility may lie with an anonymous council sub-committee meeting where people didn't allocate funds to this because trees don't vote.
Most non-natural disasters seem to me to head back not to corruption, but to the incompetence of bureaucrats. A decision is made without any real reflection on possible consequences -- and they aren't black swan consequences; they are results that are almost certain to happen somewhere, eventually. This one has happened now. People in positions of authority will say that it couldn't have been foreseen. They said that about the opening of T5.
The sad thing is, these things are all too foreseeable. What will be the next underfunded piece of London's infrastructure that causes a death?
Well, yes and, perhaps, no. Maybe it was some kind of amazing freak occurrence where no-one could be blamed. But more likely it's a combination of two main factors:
1) Bus drivers in London are trained far more poorly than they were 20 years ago. This driver may have been completely innocent of any error, but that doesn't deny the argument. You only have to walk any distance in London streets these days to see evidence of the deterioration in driving quality -- increased aggression, more excessive breaking and accelerating, more lane-weaving and less patience.
2) Council maintenance services have deteriorated. Councils are so worried about paying the pensions of their ex-workers and the wages of their current workers that the actual provision of services that don't appear to be vital to life and limb have fallen by the wayside. We've had a very rainy and sunny period in London and all of the plants and foliage are growing like mad. A road that was safe on Monday might become dangerous by Tuesday. Plant maintenance is not high on the list of priorities at council meetings. If the tree that was struck had been cut back, the death of this woman might not have happened. The responsibility may lie with an anonymous council sub-committee meeting where people didn't allocate funds to this because trees don't vote.
Most non-natural disasters seem to me to head back not to corruption, but to the incompetence of bureaucrats. A decision is made without any real reflection on possible consequences -- and they aren't black swan consequences; they are results that are almost certain to happen somewhere, eventually. This one has happened now. People in positions of authority will say that it couldn't have been foreseen. They said that about the opening of T5.
The sad thing is, these things are all too foreseeable. What will be the next underfunded piece of London's infrastructure that causes a death?
