Another crossing accident

BBC NEWS | England | Hereford/Worcs | Safety rule ignored before train crash

Safety procedures were not followed at the scene of a crash between a train and a mini-bus in which three people died on Monday, say investigators.

This is being reported (quite wrongly, in my opinion) as "Three dead in rail collision". A more accurate headline might be "three dead in road accident".

The accident didn't happen on a public road; it's a crossing between the railway and a farm track on private land. The minibus was carrying farm workers.

What worries me is that some HSE bureacrats will use this tragedy to impose yet more cumbersome safety rules and costs on the railway, which will be borne by rail passengers in higher fares. Why should rail users have to pay to protect vehicle drivers from their own stupidity? If people from the shallow end of the gene pool want to gamble with their lives and those of their passengers to save 30 seconds, there's not much railway can do about it.

Network Rail said the crossing, its telephone and the warning and instruction signs were all in perfect working condition.

The company said it wrote to the farmer on 17 January 2002, to remind him of the requirement to use the crossing correctly and warned that misuse could lead to prosecution.

If the van driver survived the crash, I hope they throw the book at him. He should be doing jail time for manslaughter.

Reminds me of the accident in Essex a few months back. A tractor driver opened the gate one one side, drove it onto the tracks, then stopped right across the tracks to climb out in order to open the gate on the other side. Then the train cut his tractor in half.

Update: Channel 4 news is reporting that it's likely the driver was a migrant worker who could not read English. So perhaps part of the blame should fall on the farmer employing these workers for not explaining the crossing rules to them.