CUTS COST LIVES ... STAFF SAVE LIVES

RMT has warned that London Underground was planning to plunge the tube system into the same lethal cocktail of safety cuts and automation that led to nine people being killed on the Washington DC Red Line service in 2009.

• In June 2009, a rush-hour crash on the Washington DC metro killed nine people, including the operator. It was caused by failure of the automated system, and the Washington Post called it “the price of parsimony” after numerous near-misses went unheeded against a background of cuts to maintenance
  schedules and inspections.
• On 2 April 2007, a man was killed on Docklands Light Railway when he fell onto the track at an unstaffed station and was hit by a driverless train. Serco Docklands was fined £450,000.
• In September, an eight-year-old child was rescued from the Jubilee line track at Stanmore by a cleaner. The driver of the train saw the child and stopped in time.

The Railway Inspectorate compelled London Underground to introduce physical detrainment when trains enter sidings after a man was killed at Liverpool Street on 20 February 2000. However, LUL is now using new inner-car barriers as a pretext to remove detrainment staff, resulting in a 12-year-old child being overcarried into the sheds at Queens Park in October. He got out of the train into an area of four live running roads; it was only the actions of the driver that prevented a fatality.

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