Hungarian crossing disaster

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Many dead in Hungary crash

Once again, a disaster on a level crossing. An express train hit a bus full of elderly German tourists, and 33 people are dead, all of them from the bus. Although the train was derailed, the train driver survived, and there were no serious injuries among the passengers.

It may be that initial eyewitness reports turn out to be inaccurate; but it appears that the bus driver entered the crossing ignoring the flashing red light. Whether through inattention or pure recklessness we'll never know; the driver died in the crash.

Such accidents are relatively rare in Britain, where the majority of road/rail crossings have barriers, and the only ungated crossings are either on branch lines with few trains, or minor roads with low traffic. I think they assess the risk by multplying the number of trains on the line by the average number of road vehicles using the road, and there will be barriers in the result is greater than n.

It's an open question as to who's responsibility it should be to pay for safety equipment on level crossings. At the moment it seems to be the railway authorities that have to come up with the money, when 99% of all crossing accidents are caused by inattentive or reckless road users.