Sir Sadiq Khan has issued an unreserved apology to a grieving woman whose fiancé was killed in a road crash as he walked home.The London mayor said the response from Transport for London was “unacceptable” and spoke with the woman privately after she raised her concerns at a public meeting.The 34-year-old woman, who has asked only to be known as Abbey, told The Standard she was grateful for the mayor’s intervention as she told of the devastating impact of her fiancé’s death.She also spoke of her determination to improve road safety and the way that public authorities deal with victims of road crime. She appealed for any witnesses to the collision, which happened in the early hours of May 12 last year in Tottenham, to contact the police.The collision happened at about 1am on The Roundway, N17, near Lordship Lane and the junction with Risley Avenue.
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00:00Hi, while working with my MP in contacting TfL to make safety changes to the junction
00:07where my fiancé was killed in May last year, I was sent a response by TfL which did not
00:13acknowledge my concerns, answer my questions or propose how they intend to make it safer.
00:19My fiancé is not the only person to have been killed at this junction in 2024.
00:24How will you make TfL more accountable to answer questions directly and honestly instead
00:29of sending a template response like I had, which is neither helpful nor respectful to
00:35victims left after a traumatic death of a loved one?
00:38First of all, I just apologise to you unequivocally.
00:42The response you received is just not good enough and I'm really sorry.
00:46What I'll do is make sure at the end I'll come and speak to you.
00:49You're the second bereaved person I've spoken to in the last year who's had a bad response
00:55from TfL.
00:58It's not normally like this, but it's wrong and I'm sorry and we'll make sure we speak
01:04to you in relation to the issue you raised.
01:07Just so you know, we have set up a number of things to support not just victims of road
01:11traffic accidents but also bereaved families.
01:13Actually, Caroline Russell, who's from a different party to me, came up with a really good idea
01:18two years ago about getting the same sort of service at those who are victims of road
01:25traffic fatalities, those who are victims of crime received.
01:29We now work with Brake, Road Peace and Sarah Hope Line to improve the service bereaved
01:35families receive, but also to support you in these difficulties, but clearly your service
01:40that you received was awful and unacceptable and we'll try and make sure lessons are learned.
01:45My Deputy Mayor for Transport here, Seb Dance, we'll make sure we speak to you.
01:50The issue you raised is dangerous junctions and how we can make them not dangerous.
01:55So we've got a list of dangerous junctions, it's like a lead table, I'm sorry, but it's
02:00as crude as that.
02:01So you've got like one down to 74, 75 and we go through them to try and make them not
02:08dangerous.
02:09There are a number of factors about which junctions we choose.
02:12The most dangerous, frankly speaking, the cost of doing a junction, the disruption of
02:17course, so forth.
02:18And so we go through that list.
02:19So when Seb meets with you, we'll make sure we make a note of the junction you refer to
02:23and we'll speak to you properly during the course of the work we're doing.
02:27The good news, we've really made a record number of junctions safe, we're improving
02:31road safety.
02:32Just to give you an example, last year we had a 25% reduction in collisions on our roads,
02:39a 24% reduction in those killed or seriously injured because of the progress we're making.
02:43So I'm really keen to meet with you to see what more we can do.
02:46And again, can I apologise again for the treatment you received, it's simply not good
02:50enough and I'm sorry.