Article: Police officer drives around boom gates at rail crossing

[ozbob]

From the Courier Mail click here!

Police officer drives around boom gates at rail crossing

Police officer drives around boom gates at rail crossing
Article from: The Courier-Mail

By Robyn Ironside

January 07, 2009 11:00pm

POLICE have defended an officer who drove around the boom gates of a level crossing 24 hours after the fatal smash between the Sunlander and a truck.
The incident sparked a safety investigation by Queensland Rail.

Police have confirmed the officer crossed the tracks in front of an approaching coal train, while the boom was down and red lights were flashing.

The train driver reported the incident at Dingo in central Queensland about 1.45pm last Friday. Queensland Rail said the matter was now being reviewed by safety investigators.

A police spokesman said the officer from Duaringa station was responding to reports of motorists entering floodwaters at Charlevue Creek, north of Dingo, "as a matter of urgency".

"The officer stopped at the rail crossing and assessed that it was safe to cross after observing a train some distance away which was moving slowly," the spokesman said.

Police said officers were able to "use their discretion" at red lights when responding to an emergency.

But Greg Smith from the Australian Federated Union of Locomotive Employees said police should be setting an example at level crossings. "They aren't a law unto themselves. People don't think of the effect this has on the driver. They've already been shaken by recent events and near misses just makes their recovery harder," Mr Smith said.

The same day as the Dingo incident, a bus carrying 12 passengers drove through a level crossing at Babinda, south of Cairns, despite flashing lights and warning bells.

The bus driver was charged by police and acting Police Commissioner Ian Stewart expressed his dismay that a bus driver would put the lives of passengers at risk.

Just 24 hours earlier on New Year's Day, father-of-two Terry Brown was killed when his garbage truck and the Sunlander passenger train collided at a level crossing near Innisfail.

The crossing was earmarked for an upgrade after being identified by a State Government taskforce as a top priority.

Mr Smith said boom gates were not always enough to stop people breaching level crossings and he called for more policing of the crossings.

"Call me a cynic but I believe there's more revenue in setting up speed cameras than setting up a unit to watch people go through boom gates," he said.

[ButFli]

If there is a genuine emergency then police should use their lights and sirens. If the situation is not urgent enough to warrant lights and sirens then it is not urgent enough to warrant crossing a "closed" level crossing (for want of a better term).

Maybe the police did the right thing in this case. Maybe the train driver was just gunning to get his name in the paper so he made a story out of nothing. It might not have been a "near miss" at all.

[Mozz]

Many situations can be emergent requiring the use of driving appropriate to code 2 & code 1 (as opposed to routine code 3 jobs) but which the use of warning lights and sirens may not be appropriate. The use of such devices relating to policing is quite subjective and not a mandatory requirement. Generally speaking there is much less use of lights and sirens in country areas compared with the bigger cities.

However in the situation of traversing an essentially closed railway crossing, the use of lights and siren is probably appropriate and should have been activated, if only to indicate the the oncoming train driver the emergent nature of the role they were undertaking at the time.

[brismike]

It's fairly simple really ... They should be setting an example for everyone else. However I have lost count of the times I have seen a police officer using a mobile phone while driving, not stopping at stop signs while driving a police car, jaywalking etc etc... It just goes to show there is one law for the police and another one for the plebs. 

[Mozz]

As you consider it fairly simple, then hey, how about you join up and spend a few years in the job and then come back and post an update here on the forum about your attitudes on policing.

Police are exempt from the regulations governing mobile phones and driving and generally would be using them in the execution of their duty, not stopping at stop signs may be heading to a job for which it is better to get their quicker rather than slower for example you might have just reported a person acting suspiciously in the vicinity of your house and while you may be alarmed, it's not enough to warrant a higher level code but the responding police want to get there quicker rather than slower.

[brismike]

I understand what you are saying Mozz .. But I still think they should be setting a good example to the rest of us. When they do those things mentioned it dosen't look good to the casual observer and breeds resentment especially when normal people get fined etc for doing the things they see police getting away with.

The original item here was regarding driving in front of a moving train at a rail crossing. They may have had a perfectly good reason to do what they did, only they will know that. Who polices the police?