Industry calls for improved Level-crossing safety regs
Page 8
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
joanna.bourketarbi.co.uk A COLLISION LAST week between a tanker and a train, resulting in 21 people being injured, has prompted renewed calls for stricter safety measures around level crossings.
The news comes as 38-year-old driver Arvydas Bartasius was charged with endangering safety after a train struck his sewage tanker at an unmanned level crossing at Little Cornard, Suffolk, on 17 August. He was working for Royston. Herts firm JK Environmental. Bartasius has been released on conditional bail until I October.
A spokesman for Network Rail says: "The crossing is a user-worked crossing with gates and a telephone. The network signaller did not receive a phone call from the user of the crossing."
The Freight Transport Association (FTA) says more effort needs to be made to improve safety on rail crossings.
FTA rail freight manager Chris MacRae says: "We hope that the current level-crossing safety legislation review will make the governing of behaviour at a level crossing harder to ignore." The Law Commission body will conclude a review into level crossing legislation, start
ed in July. on 30 November.
Readers of the Lorry Crime Blog. have posted entries suggesting communication needs to be improved between drivers and rail operators. One post says: "Surely, in the year 2010. Network Rail could come up with a better safety device
than a phone? Why not a trallic-light system with motion detectors? How many truck drivers hurrying to get finished could say that the idea of nipping across wouldn't cross their mind?"
Wayne Clarkson. network development director at Driver Hire, wrote: "The driver's actions can't be excused, but it does illustrate that there may be more that can be done."
• For more on this, visit www. roadtransport.com/lorryerimeblog