Has there been or will the be an FAI (equivalent of English Inquest) into fatal crash at Shandwick Place. It is identical in (too) many respects to the crash in Croydon on 12 October 2013, for which the inquest was held in November 2014, with the South London Coroner, making a call for a Regulation 28 report from Croydon Council, TfL and Tramlink with regard to 4 points to address for the prevention of future deaths (one of the key reasons for an inquest/FAI is to deliver actions that prevent another death through the same causes, and for road crashes especially at the same locations)
The English Coroners' website has a transparent listing of all Regulation 28 requests and the linked responses, which have to be provided within 56 days. The Croydon Inquest (for Roger de Klerk) is now 3 years overdue, with no indication of the Coroner allowing any extension of the 56 day period.
In both cases the victims were making a very shallow turn to the right across the tram tracks, when they were brought down by a loss of control when crossing the rails. As noted in previous posts I have identified 5 mechanisms for this, but have not been able to view the CCTV of the Croydon crash to establish which of those 5 factors played a role in putting the cyclist down on the road (this would be very useful given the dire condition of the tram track/road surfacing in that location and at least 2 current examples of where poor carriageway repair was clearly the factor causing loss of control and NOT the rails in the road - eg
One clear detail is that the fatal injuries were not caused by the fall but by the bus driver behind driving over the victims by failing to stop in time. This detail seems to be a common factor in HGV and bus crashes, and an 8-10Ton axle crushing a person - almost certainly fatal for head and torso but even the trauma of a badly smashed limb can kill.
Can Coroners, who often rely of technical specialists to highlight relevant issues and lessons to be learned be encouraged to question the cultural acceptance that road deaths are inevitable, and seek answers to how the fatal injuries might have been avoided, or mitigated in a road death inquiry?
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