Met blasted for only investigating 4% of serious collisions

The Met has been criticised by a London Assembly Member for only investigating four per cent of serious road collisions between 2018-20. 

The issue was raised by Green Party AM Caroline Russell who said serious injuries that have a life-changing impact should be investigated in the same way as road deaths.

The Serious Collision Investigation Unit, which is a Met department, investigated 62 per cent of fatal collisions and only four per cent of serious collisions on London’s roads from 2018 to 2020. 

Ms Russell asked the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, to extend investigations beyond fatal collisions to help meet his target for zero road deaths in London. 

When challenged, the Mayor said: “Investigations is one that I want to look into because the stats you mentioned are clearly worrying”.

Ms Russell said: “If you cause someone serious injury by shoving them over you would be done for assault, but not if you were driving a car. That’s not right.

“Victims who suffer devastating injuries, like losing a leg, have told me they feel like their injury doesn’t matter to the police and are frustrated that an opportunity to learn and prevent future collisions through a thorough investigation has been lost.

“If the Mayor wants to meet his target for Vision Zero, he needs to focus on making sure collisions causing life-changing injuries are treated with the utmost seriousness and investigated thoroughly by the Met, to learn from them and to prevent similar collisions damaging the lives of Londoners in future.”

The Met said it was not going to comment on the Assembly Member’s remarks.