Dumb and Dumber

[glossyblack]

It's a strange state of affairs when all State governments are screaming about road safety and Victoria is actually knowingley contributing to it by not even considering proper level crossing safety.
Are they so short sighted to think that only one or two people are affected by level crossing accidents?
Besdie the general public there is untold trauma to drivers, witnesses and emergency service personnel.
With major passenger incidents such as the Bendigo and Warrnambool accidents, everyone on board these trains is affected, to say nothing of the injury this does to rail's saftey record.
Having lived in Vic for thirty years before moving back to Q I have seen accident after accident, both in the Metro and country areas.
Mind you this comes from a State Government who only completed the automation of the Metro system (Coburg - Gowrie line) in 2003.
I don't know how you get it through their thick heads that this is not just a matter of rail safety  and occupational health but also public safety.
Cliff

[ozbob]

Fair comment.  There is also a responsibility of drivers to exercise due care and attention.  The recent crash has been very disturbing.  What is concerning is the number of road vehicles that just ignore speed limits, rumble strips, and actively race trains (not suggesting this is the case with recent events).  Some even drive around boom gates that are down because of an approaching train.  The only solution in the long term is road rail crossing separation, over or under pass IMHO. 

The piece below recently appeared in the Herald Sun in Melbourne. 

Vic, Death waits on lonely rural road
Article from:  , Roger Franklin, March 26, 2008 12:00am

RETRACE the last few kilometres of the Angel family's rendezvous with death and it's so easy to imagine how it might have happened.

Think Monday afternoon on a long weekend and you're heading home with the family aboard, the car is full of getaway gear -- blankets, toys, spare shoes -- and you turn off the main road to take a shortcut just before the Moriac pub.

This is the risky bit, you think, as you scan the rear-view mirror and wait to make your turn on to Considines Rd.

One slip, one lost moment, and any of those drivers in the Easter parade of vehicles heading home to Geelong or Melbourne would be right up your exhaust pipe.

The kids are in the back seat and the thought of such an impact makes you shudder.
But everything works out OK as you turn across the oncoming cars and point the nose of your big-shouldered Navarra down the gun-barrel-straight country road.

It's a narrow black ribbon of well-maintained bitumen that you are on, part of the network of back roads that locals use to cut corners and minutes off their travels.

Half an hour and you will be home in Newcomb. Half an hour tops.
So you nudge the accelerator and watch the speedo creep. Nothing too aggressive, though, because what's the hurry, anyway?

It's a gorgeous day and the surrounding fields are blazing gold beneath a vast blue sky.
Just over 2km to the railway line, which comes after a gentle gooseneck of a bend.

Close as it is, the level crossing is miles from the mind.
There's a sign coming up that warns of newly installed rumble strips ahead -- the first indication of danger.
Barub-barub-barub-barub -- that's the sound the wheels make as the 4WD takes the three sets in its stride.

Perhaps the sound registers, perhaps it doesn't.

Perhaps it simply prompts a little self-congratulation
at having bought such big, solid car.

Perfect for a family, you might think, as the paddocks flash by.
Sitting high up above the road, you can see what's coming.
Except here, less than 10 seconds from impact, that's not true.

To the left is an ancient row of cypress pines that marches obliquely across the landscape and blocks the horizon.

Like you, they are heading towards the level crossing, and your field of vision narrows as windbreak and vehicle converge.

The day is perfect, the car is humming . . . and then you see it -- a V-Line train roaring in from the left, visible now because it has finally passed that masking line of sturdy pines.

The brakes!

You try to push the pedal through the floor, grip the wheel like death and stand up in your seat to extort every last ounce of leverage from the sophisticated hydraulics beneath your feet.

And they are good, the brakes -- got to give them that.

Rather than lock up, the sensors make a multitude of millisecond decisions about which wheel gets the maximum stopping power.

Later, investigators will deduce as much from the skid marks -- the left wheels grinding their rubber into the roadway a few metres before the right side follows suit.

Even if the train wasn't coming, the skid marks demonstrate that you would have skittered through the stop sign -- clearly visible even if the train was not -- and bumped too fast over the train tracks.

But it's no good.
A grand prix racer couldn't pull up in that distance.

There's no hope at all, and in that last final fraction of an instant you know it too.

Tyres shrieking and train screaming, your ears fill with the sound of metal -- and the terror of those you love most.

The next day at almost the same time, the same train rockets through the crossing and its departing roar diminishes into nothingness.

Investigators in their orange vests continue to pick through debris and take their measurements in silence.
You can hear nothing now -- not your family's tears nor even the mournful cry of distant crows.

Nothing. Not even the sound of your own regrets.