Safety drive fails to end calls for level crossings to close

RAIL safety teams were out in force yesterday to highlight the dangers of ignoring warnings at level crossings, where nine people died last year.

Another 453 people were involved in a near miss, either as a pedestrian or a motorist, on a crossing, figures from Network Rail revealed.

There were also 10 collisions between vehicles and trains while a further 33 vehicles hit and damaged barriers.

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More than 100 events were held to help educate people about crossing tracks safely as part of International Level Crossing Awareness Day.

It follows a series of recent tragedies, including the deaths of two men, whose car was hit by a train on a level crossing near Grimsby, last month.

Martin Gallagher, head of level crossings at Network Rail, said: “The surest way to reduce risk at a level crossing is to close it and under our current safety programme we have successfully closed more than 700 in the last three years.”

He added: “If we’re not able to close a crossing, we want to raise awareness of how to use crossings safely and the risks associated with getting distracted or ignoring warning signs. That’s why our safety teams are out across the country.”

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Network Rail is investing £130m to make level crossings safer by building footbridges, adding new barriers and new technology.

In 2009 the company committed to closing 750 by spring 2014.

But Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT transport union, said crossings needed to be phased out quicker: “Awareness and safety campaigns on level crossing dangers are fine but as we have seen only recently they cannot stop the carnage that’s an ever present risk wherever rail meets road.

“The only solution is speeding up the phase-out of these crossings which are a 19th century solution in an era of high speed rail.”

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Former soldier Paul Hodge, 47, of Grimsby, died when his Volvo was hit by the 7.26pm Cleethorpes to Scunthorpe service at Great Coates automatic half-barrier level crossing on April 9.

His passenger, 40-year-old David Williams, of Cleethorpes, died in an ambulance as he was being taken to hospital.

Four-year-old Emma Lifsey, from Haxey, north Lincolnshire, also tragically died in hospital after the car she was travelling in was hit by a train at Beech Hill Crossing, Misson Springs, near Finningley, between Gainsborough and Doncaster, last December.

Records for the crossing showed that the barriers had been lowered as the car approached.

In March a driver was killed after apparently driving his car round a lowered barrier and onto a crossing near Athelney, Somerset, where it was struck by a train.

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