The new year in north Queensland was marred by another death at a railway line / road level crossing. This time it was near Innisfail. http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/705614/truck-and-train-collide-in-qld-man-dies

This follows a double fatality just a bit further south near Cardwell a few weeks earlier. http://www.truveo.com/9RAW-Two-killed-in-levelcrossing-crash/id/2393167961

There have also been numerous reports of near-misses….and a long history of this sort of accident across Australia.

The touted solutions are;

Huge overpasses on open highway crossings and boom gates on just about all crossings.

I reckon both of these ideas miss the mark terribly.

In my experience, the major problem is that drivers all too often don’t even register a level crossing in front of them until they are just about on top of it! Driving back to Townsville from central Queensland on Sunday, I passed through numerous level crossings. Even though I was very mindful of the recent tragedies, and I am very tuned in to road-safety all the time, I found myself repeatedly acknowledging a level crossing only at the last second.

OK, if the lights had been flashing (they all have lights on highway crossings), then I would probably have seen them a lot sooner, unless the sun was behind them, or perhaps if the sun was high behind me and shining strongly on the lights, or perhaps just in the middle of any bright sunny day they could be a bit hard to see.

The solution to me seems very simple; all crossings need very prominent signage and flashing lights set well back from the crossing.

We’ve got ‘stop-sign ahead’ signs on some intersections, ‘80kmh ahead’ and ‘60kmh ahead’ signs throughout New South Wales and school speed zone signs with big bright orange borders. Each of these exists because there have been problems with people not seeing signs or not seeing them soon enough to react in time.

And yet with level crossings this basic notion that you simply MUST have unmissable signage (most significantly; flashing lights) SET WELL BACK FROM CROSSINGS has just eluded our illustrious authorities.

Is the answer really this simple?

Hi Ludwig.
I think the problem is that QLD is a 'behind state'.

The population isnt that great and much government borders on the 3rd world.
I expect things will improve as time passes and QLD gets thrust into the 1st world.

When we went to country QLD in the early 1980's it was like another time.
It was like we had walked through a portal into a the mists of a bygone era.

In our town, it took over 2 decades to see improvements that NSW towns already had 2 decades and more earlier.

GDay Gibo

I travel interstate a lot by road. I can agree that in some ways Qld is backward with road-safety issues, not least in speed-limit signage. New South Wales has signs everywhere that indicate a lower speed zone ahead, well ahead of signs that indicate the actual change in speed limit. Victoria has double double speed limit signs all over the place. That is; two signs, one on each side of the road indicating that you are entering a lower speed limit zone, quickly followed by two more signs 100 metres or so up the road. But Qld mostly just has one sign….and an overall terrible paucity of speed limit signage.

When I first came to Qld in the early 80s, it did seem quite backward. Crikey, the state’s main highway; the Bruce Hwy, was a narrow goat track with innumerable one-lane bridges all the way from at least Rockhampton to Cairns! But it has all changed greatly over the years.

When it comes to level crossings, it seems that Qld is no worse than other states. In fact, Victoria has the highest level of injuries at level crossings. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/15/2336205.htm

Ludwig. Good story.
I think much of the problem is that State governments have become estranged from the bush.
Much of the budgets go to the big cities and the greater number of voters.
Thus country hospitals, roads and rail infrastructures, community needs and the like get put aside and neglected

I think that is the right approach Ludwig.

I think one of the problems is the low number of trains on many routes, these days. People get used to never seeing a train, on the tracks, or at crossings, & stop expecting them.

Your suggestions to make people aware that a train is near should stop, all but the most stupid drivers, getting into trouble.

I think that all rail crossings and school crossings for that matter should have the audible lines running across the road on the approach side for say 50 to 100 meters. This would be a rather inexpensive solution and would make anyone aware that they were approaching a potenially dangerous part of the road.

All that is needed is one or two stips say 300mm appart for say 50 to 100 meters. If you miss that then perhaps you are beyond help!

No sympathy for anyone that causes an accident at any rail crossing. The crossings are clearly marked & have flashing lights. If you try to beat 90 tonnes of Deisel & another 200 tonnes of wagons across a level crossing you deserve everything you get. (which is dead) I just feel sorry for the innocent collateral damage. Those people injured should sue the person who caused the accidents' estate.

26 years in the railways and I've lost a few good mates to these idiots.

Interesting topic. As it happens, I drive far too many kilometers, mostly on Queensland inland roads that vary in quality from OK to barely formed track - although I'm also extremely familiar with the "highway" thay call Bruce (which, now that I think of it, also qualifies for that description). I also live right next to a formerly major railway line that now carries around 4 trains a year, and considerably more QR maintenance vehicles. Many of our back roads cross the track, which I therefore also cross frequently.

I think that most comments so far all have merit. Hasbeen is correct to point out that people are often unused to seeing trains in rural and regional areas these days. However, I suspect that once that 'Peak Oil' and climate change start to really bite, we'll be seeing relatively more rail traffic and less cars and trucks on the road.

Having said that, the reason Ludwig's suggestion of having far more prominent signage set further back makes good sense (as does rehctub's suggestion of rumble strips) is because there are so many inattentive idiots driving on our roads. In every 600 km round trip I make to Brisbane I invariably see some fool narrowly escape death. I eschew the Ipswich Motorway in favour of the still pretty drive via the Moggill Ferry, as much for the reduced exposure to idiocy and road rage as for the view.

Which is why Jayb is also right. I have seen a truck race a train to a crossing between Bowen and Townsville and narrowly make it - and subsequently noticed that crossing as the site for several bad collisions until it was recently replaced with an overpass. People driving cars and trucks often take stupid risks, sometimes with horrific consequences.

“I think one of the problems is the low number of trains on many routes, these days. People get used to never seeing a train, on the tracks, or at crossings, & stop expecting them.”

Yes Hasbeen, I think this is part of the problem at crossings without lights. Some drivers think that there is extremely little chance of a train coming along right at the moment that they are crossing and consequently fail to look properly…especially in sugarcane-growing areas, along much of the Queensland coast, where there are rail networks that are only used for a small part of the year, but have just the same sort of signs as other rail crossings, and don’t have the signs covered up when they are not in use.

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Rehctub, nice one. Audible lines seem like a very good idea.

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Jayb, you seem to be assuming that all accidents are caused by reckless drivers that try to beat the train through the crossing.

I think that this is an extremely minor factor. Thus I can't see that boom gates would help much at all. Most drivers respect flashing level crossing lights to just the same extent as they do for traffic lights, which is almost 100% respect from the whole community.

Not all crossings have flashing lights. The majority don’t. The latest fatality at Mundoo near Innisfail occurred at a crossing without lights. http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,27574,24862136-3102,00.html

Blame the Railway for rail crossing accidents. Hell, why not?

Failure to take responsibility for your own actions is how most people deal with problems they themselves have caused. The trend in todays Society is for people to blame everybody else for their own stupidity, then sue.

Yes Jayb, I blame the Railways, and Departments of Transport and local, state and national governments for the problems, along with poor drivers. You bet I do. They all need to carry part of the responsibility for the ongoing carnage.

The authorities quite frankly deserve condemnation for not dealing with this issue decisively, after decades of horrific accidents, especially when the solution….or a very larger part of the solution….is so damn simple, as I outlined in my first post.

Obviously we can’t just rely on people to take responsibility for their own actions. We wouldn’t have any safety measures on our roads or any road rules, or any laws at all, if we did that.

Rumble strips are a good idea, except that they don't necessarily force drivers to drive slower.

Could undulations be built into the road with the right wavelength and height which force drivers to drive slower - a kind of set of elongated speed humps? It is this type of road surface that forces drivers to slow down on dirt roads. Signs would also be needed to alert drivers.

RobP, yes rumble strips, alternating different road textures, little speed bump thingos, etc, etc. But very much always in conjunction with big glaringly obvious signage…. and the standard sort of red flashing lights that we have right on crossings set well back from the crossing on both sides, at a distance determined by the speed limit and nature of the road……and flashing lights right on the crossing as well.

That’s it in a nutshell. Forget the ridiculous multimillion dollar overpasses.

Boom gates? Mmmmm, maybe in some situations, but not of major importance.

Perhaps the problem with level crossings is exactly that: that they are level. I can remember a time not so long ago where many, probably the overwhelming majority, of 'uncontrolled' crossings were in situations where road traffic had to climb a hump in the form of the rail embankment to make the crossing. This fact necessitated a serious reduction in approach speed of any road vehicle intended to use the crossing.

Part of the problem these days seems to be a sort of 'Bogan's Run' subliminal attitude on the part of some road users, whereby they place their faith in the Theory of Intersections. The Theory of Intersections states that "the likelihood of a collision at any intersection is proportional to the time spent within the intersection". Obviously, one of the implications of the Theory of Intersections is that the faster one travels through any intersection, the less chance there is of being involved in a collision. The 'Bogan Runners' view level crossings as intersections, it seems.

Such 'Bogan Runners' fail to appreciate that the Theory of Intersections only holds validity whilst vehicles are, or closely approach being, 'point entities'. Trains are linear entities in almost all circumstances, with the possible exceptions of fettlers' trikes, or rail-enabled road vehicles. In the circumstances of level crossings, the Theory of Interections ceases to hold good in almost all cases.

An aide memoire for 'Bogan Runners' could effectively be provided by constructing the road approach so as to incorporate two successive right-angled bends: such would both necessitate speed reduction, and bring the railway line in one direction at least into the driver's field of view. Two more such bends would, of course, facilitate a bi-directional along-the-line field of view for the driver.

Returning to my initial observation as to 'levelness', a very cheap and self-enforcing approach speed restriction might be to leave sufficient of the rail projecting above the road surface on all crossings such that anything less than a slow transit would blow both front tyres.

A good wind-up, Ludwig. I like it.

Good thoughts Forrest.

Not sure about the potentially tyre-bursting raised rails though. I can envisage a couple of problems there:

If all vehicles have to crawl across a crossing at very slow speed, it could very significantly hold up traffic if the traffic is heavy, and fray tempers.

All vehicles would need to crawl across the crossing even at times when there is no train for many kilometres.

What happens if a vehicle does burst a tyre or two? What about the prospect of it being stuck across the crossing?

Different vehicles have very different wheel sizes, from small cars to articulated trucks. I doubt that we could have one bump size that is passable by cars with the smallest legal wheel size and still effective as a deterrent for large trucks.

I think that crossings need to facilitate traffic flow when there is no train rather than slow the traffic right down all the time, especially on the open road.

Bends and raised crossings could possibly have merit in some places. However, the crossing on the Bruce Highway between Bowen and Ayr, that now has a huge overpass, had a big bend in order to take highway across the railway line that runs parallel to it. It didn’t prevent a couple of horrendous accidents with the result of the crossing being completely remodelled. There was also at least one accident due to a large truck failing to take the bend, which was at the end of a long straight stretch.

In another post on the Middle East crises I asked for the people, that were against everything the yanks were for, to come up with a their solution for the problem. A Dot Point Senerio. Of course nobody did. I believe the response was that no one was qualified to come forward with their own possible solution. I do believe that these people only want to be empty vessels & make a lot of noise. Anti-Yank anything.

Now with the problem of the Rail Crossings these same people, who have no qualifications to come up with a solution for the crossing problem, have suddenly all become experts. We now have solutions coming out of our ears.

Just goes to show what sort of people they are. Doesn't it?

I get the feeling that most truck – train accidents on the open highway are due to truckies falling into a trance-like tunnel-visioned state due to driving at a constant speed on a featureless road for too long… sometimes to the extent of not seeing signs warning of crossings, sharp curves or the like. This would be especially so at night, but could be relevant at any time of day.

Red flashing lights set well back from crossings would take care of this issue.

Having just completed another big week of driving, to the lower Burdekin, Ravenswood, Cairns and Mareeba (~1500km), in which I crossed many railway lines, I assert that the biggest problem with level crossings is the inadequate lack of forewarning….which could and damn well should be overcome simply by placing the same red flashing lights that we now see at level crossings 200 or perhaps 500 metres (depending on the nature of the road) back from the crossing, as well as at the crossings.

Where there are significant side roads close to crossings, then flashing lights should be placed on them as well.

Where there are no lights, such as minor roads crossing minor railway lines, then big bright signage is needed, instead of the easily missable little black-on-yellow signs. We need conspicuous signs of the sort that we see on the approaches to slow speed zones in front of schools….with bright orange borders around them or something of that sort.

I really do think that the essence of the problem of accidents at level crossing is this simple to address.

I know that area intimately Ludwig. I was raised in the lower Burdekin & lived in Townsville until recently. The two bad crossings in the Burdekin area are, one at Brandon No excuse for hitting this one. Yet there are prangs there all the time. The other is just over the bridge on the right going into Home Hill. Not excuse for hitting that one either. I was in the Railways Breakdown Gang for many years & attended many breakdowns on those two. The big one for me was when the Diesel hit the Semi at the Bolhe. I lost a good mate there. I lifted the Diesel off him. The Diesel flipped end for end. The Semi driver was on the phone. I found the phone. the only part of the Semi that wasn't wrecked. Oh! he was talking to another mate of mine at the time. There was no excuse for this accident either. There were plenty of warning signs & lights along that part of the Bruce Highway coming up to the the side gate of the RAAF Base.

I do agree with Rumble strips though & signs further back. I do also think that complacency has a lot to do with these accidents. The same people cross these lines at the same time every day. Thumb in bum. Mind in netural. No excuse.

Ludwig,

The point you made earlier about forgetting about multimillion dollar overpasses could be the solution. Instead of importing US technology and habits, we could be developing our own solutions. If foregoing a hundred overpasses could be used to pay for a few thousand much safer level crossings through better signage and smarter design, this would be a better outcome.

Maybe the government through an engineering peak body could set up a competition for all civil engineers to enter the best design for a level crossing. Give decent prize money to the best idea that is able to be implemented.

Jayb, last week the crossing at Home Hill just before the Burdekin Bridge was one of several that I found myself almost on top of before it registered in my head. You come around a curve and you’re on it.

When there’s a lot of traffic, when the warning signs are just a couple more signs in amongst heaps of others, when there’s a lot of ‘stuff’ happening around you, or when you are a bit tired, it is all too easy for a level crossing to just not register in your consciousness.

Yes, complacency is an issue. But from personal experience I can’t blame drivers too much. I once would have for sure. But given that I’m as tuned into road safety as anyone could be and I still miss the warning signs for rail crossings, I have to conclude that it is just human nature that people do this, and that they shouldn’t be condemned for it

Safety measures should be in place to make sure that crossings DO register with drivers well before they get to them and that the complacency or absent-mindedness factor doesn’t cost people their lives.

Good comments RobP. Today I read in the Townsville Bulletin that 10 million $ is going to be spent on eight black-spot level crossings in north Queensland, as a result of the recent fatalities………including another one yesterday.

This seems absurd. More than a million $ per crossing, for eight of them, and presumably NOTHING for the other several hundred that also badly need safety upgrades!

Crikey, 10 million $ could put much more conspicuous signage at just about all of these crossings, and red flashing lights well back from the crossings for the ones that really need it.

Ahhh jeezuz.

Jayb, last week the crossing at Home Hill just before the Burdekin Bridge was one of several that I found myself almost on top of before it registered in my head. You come around a curve and you’re on it.

That crossing is a side line into the Mill, It's not the Main Line. It also runs parallel to the Highway & is clearly visable. The line is also clear ahead through to the Sugar filling building. If you hit any train on that line it's you own bloody fault. The crossing on the main line is a little further on, on the left. The road comes from Up River Road Home Hill. Also clear in every direction. No excuse.
The big accident in Ingham a few years ago. The guys in the Hilux were racing the train to the crossing. The driver was inbeded into the front of the Diesel. How do I know? I peeled the car off the front of the Diesel. We had to wait for the Coroner. No excuse.
It's natures way. Survival of the fittest. It gets rid of the idiots so they don't breed more idiots.
The prevelent view on life today by the Namby Pamby is,"I accept no responsibility. It's everybody elses fault if something bad happens to me." Well here's some bad news. "Bullexcreter and stiff excreter."
Am I hard? Well, you could say so, but I accept life for what it is, "brutal" & work around that. I don't expect that everyone should cater for MY complacency.

Jayb, what does it matter if it is a main line or a little side line? If there is anything more than the most minuscule chance of a driver not seeing it or registering it in their mind until the last moment, then there’s a major problem.

Why are school speed zone signs often much larger than other speed limit signs, with bright orange borders, and often accompanied with big bright strips painted on the road?

Not because people ignored the signs but because lots of people were just not seeing them when they were first introduced.

You might wonder how anyone could miss the slow speed zones in front of schools if they had normal signage. Well, they did and still do!

We need to exercise the same principle with level crossings – unmissable signage!

continued

I don’t want to offend you, but maybe the hard attitude that you are expressing is a large part of the problem.

If the authorities take the view that warning signs are in place and therefore it is 100% the responsibility of drivers to see them and drive cautiously as a result, then nothing will get done to improve the signage….and tragedies will continue to happen…..and those who miss the signs will be deemed 100% responsible, when in fact those who are responsible for inadequate signage or for not improving the warning system after years of horrible accidents should be held to account.

Of course, an idiot that races a train across a level crossing is another story. But let’s be careful about that. What appears to be a testosterone-fuelled spur-of-the-moment challenge, is probably often a case of missing the warning signs, while in the middle of a conversation with a passenger, singing along with a CD, or under the influence of any one of a thousand other distractions…..or just plain tired or absent-minded.

I find it extremely hard to imagine even the most idiotic youth being so foolish as to put their life on the line by racing a train to a crossing unless it is very clear to them that they are going to win by a big margin!

Jayb, what does it matter if it is a main line or a little side line? If there is anything more than the most minuscule chance of a driver not seeing it or registering it in their mind until the last moment, then there’s a major problem.

I re-iterate. "If you hit any train on that line it's you own bloody fault." Take resopnsibility for your own actions don't blame someone or something else.

…..and those who miss the signs will be deemed 100% responsible, when in fact those who are responsible for inadequate signage or for not improving the warning system.

It would matter how much the Government did about warnings, some idiot will ignore them & blame everything else. Once again I re-interate. It's natures way. Survival of the fittest. It gets rid of the idiots so they don't breed more idiots. The prevelent view on life today by the Namby Pamby is,"I accept no responsibility. It's everybody elses fault if something bad happens to me." Well here's some bad news. "Bullexcreter and stiff excreter." I stand by this statement.

I find it extremely hard to imagine even the most idiotic youth being so foolish as to put their life on the line by racing a train to a crossing unless it is very clear to them that they are going to win by a big margin!

This was no youth. It was a 50 year old man who traveled that road every day.

Let me say, I attended a lot of "accidents?" in my 15 years on the Breakdown Gang. I never saw one that wasn't caused by the persons own stupidity. Nothing to do with, "signage,""road conditions" or "any other reason." Just, "Pilot Error." As they say in Vietnamese, "Xin loi" or in Aussie venacular "Stiff $#!^." Another dead idiot is no great loss to the world.:-)

“This was no youth. It was a 50 year old man who traveled that road every day.”

Jayb you missed my point. Even the most idiotic youth is not likely to race a train across a crossing unless he absolutely knows he is going to win (in which case it isn’t really a race). In other words, even the absolute end-of-the-spectrum stupid person is not going to undertake a real race with a train. So a 50 year-old who is very familiar with the road and crossing that he came to grief on, is just not going to race a train. Distractions, absent-mindedness, the feeling that a train is extremely unlikely to come along in the precise one second time period that he is actually crossing the rail line – these are the sorts of things that must have applied in this case….surely!

“It would[n’t] matter how much the Government did about warnings, some idiot will ignore them & blame everything else”

The better the warning system, the less the number of accidents. But of course, it will never be entirely fool-proof.

“It's natures way. Survival of the fittest. It gets rid of the idiots so they don't breed more idiots.”

That would be almost acceptable if the “idiots” were 100% to blame….and if they were the only ones affected. But neither of these applies.

Ludwig

I recall at time, many years ago now, when driving somewhere through the Barossa Valley, rounding a bend I was virtually on top of a rail crossing, the high grass on all sides obscured any indication of a track and I had no chance to stop - missed a train by "that much". Not something you ever forget, seeing the front end of a diesel bearing down... signs set well back from the crossing would have been much appreciated.

I don't understand this obsession of Jayb's that all accidents are the fault of the driver and why s/he would not be in favour of clearer signs.

Rail is an excellent method for transport and, I suspect that we will see more, rather than less trains in the future as we shift reliance on trucks and become more sustainable. The placement of earlier signage works out much cheaper than the installation of under or over passes at all crossings.

Ultimately we cannot protect against sheer stupidity or bad luck. Nor can we protect ourselves from people who see things in terms of black or white only - these people tend to want the last word as well. I am positive there are more Ludwigs in this world than Jayb's, your points are reasonable and succint, as always.

Cheers

Thanks Fractelle

I had a similar near-miss experience as a kid when my father crossed in front of a train with the whole family on board in Albany in about 1972.

Why do some crossings have larger red flashing lights than others, with big broad black borders around them?

To make them stand out more against a bright background and be a whole lot harder to miss.

So, our illustrious authorities realised at some point that there was a problem with people not seeing the standard smaller red flashing lights in time, at least at some crossings under certain conditions.

They realised that improvements in the warning system were needed. But they apparently didn’t recognise this as the critical issue….and they addressed it in a highly inadequate manner, that is so typical with road-safety issues overall.