‘Blade Runner’ activists, the group responsible for vandalising Ulez cameras, have been accused of causing an accident which led to a six-year-old girl being taken to hospital with non-life-threatening head injuries.
The accident happened over the weekend after the group cut down a Ulez camera but damaged a network of five traffic lights in the process, causing havoc at a junction in south-east London.
The Blade Runners are a self-nominated group that say they’re standing up for London’s motorists after the Ulez boundary was expanded last August to include the full area of Greater London.
The expansion has been highly controversial with Sadiq Khan found to have used falsehoods and exaggerations to support his case and, as recently as last week, TfL was found to have incorrectly issued over £20m of fines to compliant motorists.
Blade Runners have been taking the fight back to TfL by illegally vandalising cameras and rendering them useless in a criminal campaign that is now taking up substantial amounts of Metropolitan Police time, with over 1,000 incidents logged in the last seven months alone.
Locals took to social media to vent their frustration at the Blade Runners, with Nikita Louise saying on Meta: "I understand the cause with the ULEZ cameras but cutting the actual lights is quite frankly idiotic, it's going to cause carnage and accidents.
"Let's hope none of the "blade runners" families are involved in any crashes that occur due to them cutting the lights down across the whole of Orpington & Chislehurst/Bickley, wonder if they'd feel guilty then that their the cause...... Seen kids this morning trying to cross the roads but they can't cause no one is stopping to let them cross, seen a few near misses on my way into work as well."
Chief Inspector Priya Shome, based in Bromley, said: "We are investigating the criminal damage to five sets of traffic lights in the Orpington area overnight which has caused major traffic management issues.
"Two police units, who should have been available to answer 999 calls, were instead required to spend the morning managing traffic.
"The people who are carrying out this criminal damage are putting the public at risk. This morning, there has been a collision between two cars on Court Road, at the location of one of the damaged traffic lights, in which a child was injured.
"I would urge the people carrying out these crimes to stop immediately and think about the danger they are causing to road users."
Police confirmed that two vehicles were involved in a collision and that an adult and a six-year-old girl were taken to hospital to be treated for head injuries, with their condition described as non-life-threatening.
The frequency and extremity of the attacks it becoming alarming in recent weeks, with cameras in Chislehurst and Bromley cut down and left lying on the pavement over the weekend, while further incidents in Baring Road, Marvels Lane, Bromley Road and Southend Lane are being investigated.
The areas of Bromley and Lewisham have been heavily targeted by the group and a camera in Sidcup, around two miles away, was blown up by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in December.
After the Sidcup explosion using an improvised explosive device (IED) DCS Trevor Lawry said: “It is extremely concerning that an explosive device seems to have been deliberately placed in a public place. This could have very easily resulted in members of the public being very seriously injured.”
A Transport for London spokesperson said: “Vandalism is unacceptable and all incidents on our network are reported to the police for investigation. Criminal damage to ULEZ cameras or vehicles puts the perpetrators at risk of prosecution and injury, while simultaneously risking the safety of the public.
"We are aware of a collision today between two cars at the location of a vandalised traffic light, and our thoughts are with the two people who were injured.
“Camera vandalism will not stop the ULEZ operating London-wide. All vandalised cameras are repaired or replaced as soon as possible. We have an extensive camera network which is sufficient to support the effective operation of the scheme.
"Anyone driving a non-compliant vehicle within the expanded zone will be detected and we advise everyone to check whether their vehicle is compliant and to consider the various support that is available to help transition to greener modes of transport.”
“We work hard to keep people safe and to keep traffic moving and we urgently attend to all reports of traffic signal outages. We are working to ensure that these traffic lights in Orpington are fixed as quickly as possible.”
