Simulated Collision of Passenger Road Car with Train Demonstrated Needless Hazard and Inattention of Drivers

07.06.2018

A passenger road car collided with a train; the result was one fatality, two persons were injured. The accident was caused by the road car driver who did not respect the railway crossing signalling system. Such news have been unfortunately quite frequent recently; last year, 160 of these accidents occurred and 57 in the first five months of this year. Fortunately, this specific accident was simulated only; Správa železniční dopravní cesty and České dráhy joined in this way the International Level Crossing Awareness Day (ILCAD 2018).

This year’s topic of ILCAD is inobservance of signalling and safety systems at railway crossings by road car drivers. A number of preventive events and appeals to drivers so that they avoid unnecessary risks and pay due attention to car driving not only near railway crossings notwithstanding, statistics remain quite threatening. In 2016, 160 accidents occurred at railway crossings with 34 fatalities and 81 injuries. This year, 57 accidents occurred at railway crossings, 13 people die during collisions with trains, 25 were injured.

Every day, cameras situated at railway crossings record hazardous behaviour of car drivers. Even the most sophisticated railway crossing equipment cannot be effective if it is not observed by the drivers themselves. SŽDC invests a considerable amount of money in increasing safety at railway crossings; only this year it will be over CZK 814 million invested in better safeguarding of 82 level crossings. Besides modernizing signalling and safety equipment types, twenty railway crossings will be completed by barriers and light waring signal devices will be installed on four more. Dozens of other crossings will be completely reconstructed while focusing also on the level crossings’ surface. The Czech railway infrastructure manager also deals with testing new technologies and accelerating preparation of grade-separated junctions’ construction.

”As we can see from the recent years’ statistics, practically 99% of all accidents at railway crossings are caused by road car drivers. Every day we see cases of bypassing barriers or entering a railway crossing when the signalling device is already active. Drivers take risks quite needlessly, the consequence of their behaviour may be extremely tragic“, says Mr. Jiří Svoboda, Director General of SŽDC.

During the simulated collision with a train, the road car driver was taking risks as well when entering road crossing while a train was approaching. The collision was unavoidable. Three people were travelling in the car; one did not survive the crash, two were injured. The culprit himself got off with a slight injury only. The accident was notified to the dispatching site of the integrated rescue system; upon arrival to the accident site, railway firemen had to secure it first, then the rescuers provided immediate first aid to all injured. Passengers in the train did not sustain any injuries.

Exceptional events at railway crossings in 2009 - 2018 (as of 31 May 2018):

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accidents
casualties
injured
 

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