Hello, Could you please inform me how many people per year, for the last 5 years, have been recorded as being hit by the wing mirror of your buses. Any other helpful stats welcome.

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Our ref: FOI-1939-2021/GH 

 

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 27 December 2020 asking for information about the number of people who have been hit by a bus wing mirror. 

 

Your request has been considered under the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and our information access policy. I can confirm that we do hold the information you require. 

 

Whilst we do not have a specific recording category for collisions involving bus wing mirrors, we have searched our safety reporting system for incidents defined as collisions between buses and people, cyclists, motorcyclists or e-scooters. Incidents involving wing mirrors were found using a word search within the incident descriptions and then checked manually to ensure relevance.  

 

Please see the table below showing the number of recorded incidents: 

 

Year	Wing mirror collisions
2016	85
2017	75
2018	59
2019	78
2020	64

 

Please note that these figures include incidents where people have hit buses' wing mirrors (as opposed to being hit by wing mirrors), such as when the buses were stationary. They also include incidents where mirrors have hit people's clothing, eg bags and hats. 

 

Mirrors are an integral part of bus design to give drivers extensive visibility of the near-side and off-side of the bus as well as interior areas where passengers stand. As part of our plans to reduce incidents of all types as much as possible we have introduced a new Bus Safety Standard for London, which includes making the vehicle more conspicuous (an audio alert when quiet running buses approach), better mirrors and Intelligent Speed Assistance to maintain bus speeds no greater than the road limit. In 2021, the standard will be tightened to take advantage of newer technology such as camera monitoring systems which can replace side mirrors and improve visibility in poor light and darkness, as well as reduce the risk of collisions. (Camera monitoring systems have been fitted to approximately 250 vehicles already). 

 

Further bus safety information is published quarterly on our website at: https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/bus-safety-data.  

 

If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable to access it for some reason, please do not hesitate to contact me. 

 

If you are considering submitting a further FOI request please think carefully about whether the request is essential at this current time, as answering FOI requests will require the use of limited resources and the attention of staff who could be supporting other essential activity. Where requests are made, please note that our response time may be impacted by the current situation. 

 

If you are not satisfied with this response please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal. 

 

Yours sincerely 

 

Graham Hurt 

FOI Case Officer 

FOI Case Management Team 

General Counsel 

Transport for London

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