I am writing to make a request under the Freedom of Information Act, 2000 and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004. Please acknowledge receipt. I would like information about the number of injuries caused by road vehicles including cars, buses, minibuses vans and so on operated by your organisation or on behalf of your organisation. (Cause does not imply blame in this context.) For each of the years 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 could you tell me: • How many pedestrians were injured or killed after being hit by the wing mirrors of your vehicles? • How many cyclists were injured after being hit by the wing mirrors of your vehicles? • How many motorcyclists were injured after being hit by the wing mirrors of your vehicles? • How many other road users were injured by wing mirrors on your vehicles? • For each year and category of road user please give the number of deaths and serious injuries linked to wing mirror impacts. For context, the wing mirrors of many larger or commercial vehicles have become larger to try to make them safer to drive. This is obviously a good intention but the increased size means many vehicles have wing mirrors that stick out some distance from the side of a vehicle. These are often at head height and so may hit other road users and pedestrians and can inflict serious injuries as the mirrors . You can see the scale of this simply by googling 'head injury' and 'wing mirror'. Transport for London has gathered some (now outdated) data on this too - see this link. The following is not part of my formal FoI request but if possible I would appreciate any background information you can offer on this issue - which is a general problem rather than something particular to your organisation. It is clearly an issue of public interest. 1. Is your authority aware of wing mirror impacts as a safety concern? 2. Have you issued any advice or training to staff on minimising risk? 3. Has it been discussed internally or in public meetings? 4. Could you give me any statistics on the overall number of road accidents and injuries involving your vehicles? (Again, this is not meant to imply blame)

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TfL Ref: FOI-0342-1920

Thank you for your email of 1^st May 2019 asking for information about injuries caused by TfL road vehicle wing mirrors.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy.

Specifically you asked:

“I would like information about the number of injuries caused by road vehicles including cars, buses, minibuses vans and so on operated by your organisation or on behalf of your organisation. (Cause does not imply blame in this context.)

For each of the years 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 could you tell me:

• How many pedestrians were injured or killed after being hit by the wing mirrors of your vehicles?
• How many cyclists were injured after being hit by the wing mirrors of your vehicles?
• How many motorcyclists were injured after being hit by the wing mirrors of your vehicles?
• How many other road users were injured by wing mirrors on your vehicles?
• For each year and category of road user please give the number of deaths and serious injuries linked to wing mirror impacts.”

I can confirm that TfL holds information about accidents involving our vehicles, or vehicles operated on behalf of TfL. However, we do not have the specific information requested compiled into the necessary datasets that would allow us to easily answer your questions. Rather, we would have to review individual records to determine the specifics of each case (and even then it is possible that the level of detail recorded would not necessarily be sufficient in all cases to provide comprehensive answers to all of your questions). We believe that to source the data for all relevant vehicles for all of the years in question would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ of £450 set by the Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. Under section 12 of the FOI Act we are not obliged to comply with a request if we estimate that the cost of determining whether we hold the information, and then locating and retrieving it, or extracting it from other information, would exceed the appropriate limit. This is calculated at £25 per hour for every hour spent on the activities described, which equates to 18 hours work. To help bring the cost of responding to your request within the £450 limit, you may wish to consider reframing its scope so that we can more easily locate, retrieve and extract the information you are seeking. You should note that there is some general data published on the TfL website relating to road collisions, which can be found here:

https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/road-safety

Some more specific data about Bus safety which may be of interest to you can be found online here:

https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/bus-safety-data#on-this-page-2

TfL also publishes an annual Health and Safety report, the latest version of which can be found here:

https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/health-safety-and-environment

In your email you also asked a number of questions which you stated fall outside the scope of your formal FOI request, as follows:

• Is your authority aware of wing mirror impacts as a safety concern?
• Have you issued any advice or training to staff on minimising risk?
• Has it been discussed internally or in public meetings?
• Could you give me any statistics on the overall number of road accidents and injuries involving your vehicles? (Again, this is not meant to imply blame).

TfL is aware that wing mirrors feature in many road traffic accidents in London including, for example, collisions involving our buses. However, the majority of these are collisions with other vehicles. When such an event occurs this forms part of a full investigation by the bus operator. Driving staff are regularly being trained in relation to their spatial awareness and the need to check and re-check their blind-spot areas. In addition to this, TfL is currently undertaking tests with buses utilising digital camera systems that replace the wing mirror with a camera. This allows the drivers to look at CCTV monitors to their left and right in the cab, rather than relying on the physical mirror outside of the bus which clearly is extending into the road. This device needs testing with different buses, drivers and union consultation before we consider rolling it out fleet-wide. We review all accident causes and types with bus operators on a quarterly basis during visits by the Health and Safety team from TfL, and also at safety meetings held with the bus operators.

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.

Yours sincerely,

David Wells

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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