GOM City

[peterbirks]

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?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think the driver can be at fault here. The real mistake is planting trees along pavements in cities. If you want trees live in the country.

Cock-ups like T5 are caused purely and simply by poor project management. On the rare occasions when I have worked on a IT project which (a) really really mattered and (b) was properly managed, we always ran the old and new systems in parallel for a week at least. Going live then simply consists of not running the old system any more. Whenever you hear about a computer system failing on its first day you can safely assume that it wasnt tested properly.

matt

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

Another factor may be that I'm pretty sure (though have no figures off the top of my head with which to back this assertion up) that one of Ken's achievements was increasing the number of buses on the roads, as well as the London bus patronage.

Tum-te-tum; it's not the same thing, but the number of journeys in London (http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/datatablespublications/public/buslightrail/buslightrail200708/busoctdec07) is up 60% since 2000, but that includes Croydon Tramlink (which originally didn't exist) and the DLR (which has been expanded). I still suspect the number of the buses on the roads will be up, but probably only slightly. (I also suspect the number of vehicles of all types on the roads will be up, noting the effect of the Congestion Charge, displacement and so forth.)

It's probably a pretty small factor in comparison with the two you identify, to be honest.

[(Anonymous)]

The bus journey increase between 2000/01 and 2007/08 is 61%, even discounting Tramlink and DLR, both of which are dwarfed by bus travel.

Trees are big heavy things and bits of them occasionally fall off of their own accord. Sometimes people are unlucky to be standing underneath them at the time. Probably the biggest contributor to any perceived increase in risk is the increase in London's population that as a result increases the proportion of time that someone somewhere is standing under a tree.

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

When I was young we had four trees in our (relatively built-up) street in central London. In 18 years I don't recall a branch of any weight "falling off".

Then again, they were sharply cut back once a year.

I wonder when the tree whose branch went walkabout was last cut back?

PJ

[(Anonymous)]

Yes fair point, that will clearly be a big factor too. I have noticed in the past that often there is a bus-shaped or train-shaped "hole" in the foliage of a lot of trees that overhang roads and railways. Presumably if there's enough traffic ploughing the same route then the trees never build up the growth in the areas that are frequently bashed by traffic.

It's worth pointing out that the police are as yet unsure as to whether the tree fell into the path of the bus independently, and that also apparently another vehicle "was involved".

And on another of your points, this is the first time in ten years of living in London that I've heard of a single one of the 7 million people in London being killed by a falling tree branch. It's not immediately obvious where the majority of that scarceness is hiding. It could be that the entire rest of London has a "branch fall" frequency exactly the same as your four trees.

Some people are just unlucky to die bizarre deaths. It doesn't necessarily follow that someone is to blame. And in this case I'm sure if someone can be put in the frame they will be.

Lurker

This is Britain

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

I'll bet they won't be.

Re: This is Britain

[(Anonymous)]

I bet that someone will be, but that that person will not necessarily be the person genuinely at fault. Probably it'll be the bus driver.

"Freak" accidents

[ukastronomy.livejournal.com]

I have lived in Daventry 17 years but I worked along a local bridleway to the canal exactly once. Two lads on motor bikes roar down the bridleway from behind us, round the corner and onto the tow path. They suddenly see Claire and I and nearly, very nearly, crash into us and the canal respectively.

If I was currently sitting on a cloud or even in intensive care I would be more than a little pissed off by a "once in 17 years" event of this type.

Re: "Freak" accidents

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

(a) Don't live in Daventry. This is just a general observation.
(b) I have a mild suspicion that this is how statistics work.
(c) Probably not important for an astronomer, though.

Enjoy!