P148
- Street stars named desire
by Mark Townsend
The Guardian, 26 September 2004
|
AS ICONS of London go, the
Routemaster bus has few peers. News of its imminent
abolition prompted disbelief across the world, in particular
the US whose citizens have marvelled in their millions at
the classic design for more than half a decade. Yet the real
reason why the Routemaster will soon disappear commercially
from the capital's streets is another altogether more modern
US import: compensation culture.
|
|
Bus chiefs have admitted that in the fiercely competitive world of
the London bus trade they can no longer afford the upsurge in
litigation from passengers who fall off the famous 'hop-on-hop-off'
design. The final straw came when an American lawyer fell from a
Routemaster last year in Putney High Street and suffered brain
damage.
Although the claimant had been
drinking, he is understood to have sought compensation of more than
£3 million. Experts claim the compensation for 'personal injury
claims' on London buses has reached £50m a year with the
majority of payouts going to Routemaster passengers. The design has
also led to a handful of fatalities.
David Brown, the chief executive of
bus company Go-Ahead in London, said:
'Thirty years ago when a
passenger fell off the back it wouldn't cross their minds to seek
litigation. Now it is the second thing they do after receiving
treatment. The problem is that when people fall of a Routemaster
they tend to land on their head.'
To ascertain the scale of the
problem, research was commissioned last year to determine precisely
how dangerous Routemasters were compared with their modern
counterparts. It concluded that passengers were five times more
likely to suffer an 'alighting accident' than on a modern, closed
design.
Even before the research could
report its conclusions, the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone
had
announced that Routemasters would
be gradually phased out. By the end of next year they will have gone
entirely. However plans have been drawn up for a heritage tour to
satisfy US visitors who remain mystified how such a national symbol
could be taken out of service.
While their imminent passing has
been widely mourned, a Routemaster can be acquired for as little as
£2,000. Scores of redundant models are for sale in a vast Essex
car park.
One recent visitor was former All
Saints star Natalie Appleton, who bought a Routemaster as a surprise
birthday present for her husband, Liam Howlett, frontman for the
Prodigy.
'Appleton just came down
and picked one up, a lovely model,'
said a spokesman for Ensign Buses,
a secondhand bus dealership in Purfleet, Essex.
Appleton had followed the lead of
Andrew Lloyd-Webber who had also decided to procure a Routemaster for
his long-time friend, the theatre impresario Sir Cameron
Mackintosh.
A spokesman for Transport for
London said they understood why the bus would attract such
sentimentality, but added there were a number of factors aside from
safety that had led to the decision to phase out
Routemasters.
He said that new buses offered
better access for the disabled and elderly and as more people tended
to buy tickets before boarding, conductors had become less relevant.
'We are not
anti-Routemasters, we are simply pro-progress.'
Top of
page; Return
to Publications Index
2/10/04 Last Updated
2/10/04