Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan

A BUS safety campaigner who was comatosed after being run over in the West End has warned of a “chilling increase” in deaths and serious injuries from London buses, after 15 people were hospitalised following a horror crash in Victoria yesterday, Thursday.

Tom Kearney told the Extra about “catastrophic and unacceptable failure” by the Mayor of London to get on top of the problem.

Since he was hit in Oxford Street in 2009 he has repeatedly called for a stronger response to shocking figures.

Four people had been killed and 125 seriously injured on Oxford Street alone in bus incidents over eight years from 2016, he said.

Witnesses said it was a “miracle” no one was killed in the crash yesterday, which follows the deaths of two pedestrians in bus collisions close to Victoria station in recent years. Mr Kearney said: “While Sadiq Khan has been mayor and TfL [Transport for London] chair, about every six weeks someone has been killed in a London bus safety incident. Three in four of these deaths are the result of a bus collision. In 2024 someone was killed in a preventable bus safety incident every three weeks. Except for a short period during the Covid-19 pandemic, recorded crashes have been stuck at an eerily predictable 80 bus crashes per day for the past five years.”

Mr Kearney has recently given evidence to the London Assembly’s bus and tube safety investigation and to a public bill committee in the House of Commons.

He also runs a podcast, ComaDad, he has created about the “institutionally unsafe” buses titled “The episode Transport for London definitely does not want you to hear”.

Yesterday’s crash involved a 24 double-decker that mounted the pavement in Victoria Street injuring 17 people. Fifteen, including the driver, had to be taken to hospital.

The bus windscreen was shattered and Allington Street had to be closed with “no smoking warnings signs” put up due to a fuel spillage.

Several witnesses reported bus passengers with injuries caused from broken glass and that the bus driver had crawled out of the wreckage repeating: “This f***ing bus.”

“There were about 15, 16 people inside the bus. People were screaming – it was terrible,” a passer-by Emit Suker told the PA news agency.

A large emergency response was launched and an air ambulance was scrambled to the scene. The bus is provided by Transport UK, formerly Abellio UK.

In 2024 the family of victim Kathleen Finnegan, 56, had warned that more people would die or be seriously injured due to the volume of buses around Victoria.

In that case the mayor Sir Sadiq Khan issued an apology for the lack of meaningful response from TfL following the tragedy.

After Melissa Burr died following a collision with a bus in 2021, safety inspections found the area around the station was not safe.

Yesterday TfL’s head of bus service delivery Rosie Trew said: “Our thoughts are with the people who have been injured following a bus incident at Victoria Street.

“This must have been a distressing incident for everyone involved and we have support available for anyone affected.”