To think level crossings need to be banned

[Friendofmine8]

Or at least all monitored by CCtv at all times? I just feel they cause awful risk to both people on food and in cars.

The only times our local one had problems is if the occasional person jumps and tries to cross or if someone rams the gates.

How far do you legislate for idiocy?

Schools did teach about them in the 80's. The train companies came into school to put the fear of God into us. We didn't even have a level crossing in our town.

Not liking your list at all acat!

Firstly I like wine. I fear I would miss it too much.

Secondly, if I can't cross the road, how will I get to the shop to buy my wine?

And if there's no stairs, that's a huge portion of the house I can't access. I would have to sleep on the sofa and listen to DH snoring on the other sofa which I fell might be more dangerousfor his safety long term

Am I ok boiling the kettle for a ?

Unfortunately it could lead to a derailment with innocent people being killed. Maybe the monitoring should be to identify and prosecute the selfish idiots who think that nothing applies to 'Moi'.

Exactly. And now they can't be bothered.

They are there for a reason. Just abide by the signals. It’s not complicated.🙄

The trouble is they often do take someone else with them, not to mention the trauma of the poor train driver who is watching this in close up but unable to stop the train in time. Probably not pleasant for the police officers or paramedics either.

Yes, sadly I think that has a lot to do with it. There are, unfortunately, many parents focusing on teaching children only about their rights and nothing about their responsibilities.

Maybe let’s ban the source of the risk - cars and drivers

Yes, that's very true, of course. I feel so dreadfully sorry for the drivers who have to deal with this - if they survive the incident. Some of them don't.

I've now gone down a rabbit hole of reading about these cases and was just reading about one incident where someone deliberately parked their car on a line in order to commit suicide. All well and good, but he also took out six people on the train, including the driver.

But schools do still teach about railway safety.
Maybe it's on an area by area basis, but a vast number of kids at the local school will cross a railway line to get there (one level crossing, and 2 bridges nearby) and there is definitely an assembly once a year on railway safety.

Is any of that to do with privatisation? When I was at school in the 70s and 80s it was still British Rail.

I'm certain I've seen recent advertising about not fucking about on train tracks/with level crossings.

What? The risk is the trains.

Ah maybe

I'm on board with that as a slogan

They are monitored by CCTV.

Some people are pricks. They should be the ones who are banned!
This! Far too many motorists think they're wearing a tin onesie rather than controlling a dangerous lump of metal and glass.

No, I just think people need to use their sense and look like they would crossing or driving on a road

Has there been a surge in accidents at level crossings?
Statistically, are they that dangerous?

Network Rail would love to get rid of them and have closed or built alternative crossings in many places, but sometimes it just it just isn’t feasible https://www.networkrail.co.uk/communities/living-by-the-railway/level-crossing-closures/

Yeah so they can watch when someone gets slammed into by a train..

It was under British Rail when I was at school and we certainly never had visits around train safety or anything else train related.

The odd assembly on road safety or cycling proficiency but nothing to do with trains. I don't think it realistic to expect schools to pick up the slack for every inadequate parent - there are not the hours in the curriculum. The odd assembly, reinforcing safety messages through other community groups such as scouts, girls brigades etc is all fine but the basic expectation should be on parents to be parents.

The incident I linked to the barriers were replaced with the roll across ones as they were always failing in the wind.

Not really. Technically the risk is the pedestrians or cars that get in the way of trains.

On the whole, trains tend to behave themselves quite well as long as things that shouldn't be in their direct path aren't.