Level-crossing hazards

Two more deaths at a level-crossing. I wonder what can be done to make these safer…

Terrible tragedy but were they ‘running the lights’?

We have a level crossing just at the bottom of our lieu dit (about 6 trains a day on a single track) and we always treat the crossing (all crossings) with the utmost respect. Trying to beat the barriers is never a good idea as it will invariably end in tragedy. The difference between here and the UK I think is that the barriers come down much too early in the UK whereas here, they come down sufficiently early enough to allow the train free passage and disrupt road traffic as little as possible.

It just requires respecting the alerts and not trying to be in too much of a hurry. Better be late than not arrive at all…

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Yes, Graham… it may well be another case of “speed” instead of common sense…terrible waste.

There have been several similar incidents recently… you would think folk would be almost loathe to cross…

Perhaps I could understand it better if both the lights and the barriers failed (I think there are fail safes to prevent such an event) but there seems to be a culture of ‘I beat the system ha ha’.

Still, mercifully, I guess it was a quick dispatch.

From memories of years ago in UK… I think some folk would try to “beat” the chap who was closing the gates at the manned level crossings… :zipper_mouth_face:

Never seemed to have so many reports before… are we better informed ?? or are these incidents increasing…??

The stats say the number of accidents/deaths is pretty consistent, what surprised me though was that nearly 20% of crossings have no barriers which I assume is because at certain points the road traffic is so light that the cost of installing and maintaining automatic barriers can’t be warranted.

level crossing used to come down later in england but it was increased to stop said accidents.

Still get people crossing dodging but with far less accidnts now in the uk

Uk stats 2017 not published yet (stats published but level crossing wass missing all together but there were fatalities)