Taking risks? You will pay! Sometimes even with your life…

23.06.2016

Hradec Králové, 23 June 2016 – Today, the preventive safety event ”Taking risks? You will pay!“ took place, organised by Správa železniční dopravní cesty (the Czech Railway Infrastructure Administration) and the Czech Police. Through this event which took place in the Hradec Králové Region, both institutions want to warn of risky behaviour of drivers and pedestrians while moving on the railway lines and at railway crossings.

In this region only, 8 people were hit in the trackage this year. As people are incorrigible, we decided to organise another of preventive safety events ”Taking risks? You will pay!“ After Liberec and Pardubice Region, we monitored reckless passengers and drivers from Hradec Králové Region. The point of this event is not repression only but especially public education. Many people still do not know that by crossing tracks they infringe laws and risk a penalty up to an amount of CZK 10,000.

At railway stations Hradec Králové hlavní nádraží, Hradec Králové - Slezské Předměstí, Solnice, Trutnov hlavní nádraží, Malé Svatoňovice and Náchod we have identified 183 trespassers. In the vast majority, policemen dealt with these transgressions by form of reprimand. This approach also demonstrates that the event had a preventive character indeed.

A great danger for cutting across tracks may be e.g. a simple audio headpiece or a cell phone. With a headpiece, the pedestrian cannot hear nearing danger. Suffice then to look around poorly or to approach tracks carelessly. When a person listens to music or has a phone call he/she cannot hear an approaching train or its hoot. Moreover, modern electrical trains are so silent that even with no earpiece at all you can hear it in the last minute only. In this situation, people tend to panic and a fall into a trackage directly under the wheels of a train in motion is imminent.

”Reckless passengers cutting across tracks are risking their lives. A passenger train running at 80 kph, even if it uses all braking means available and on ideal adhesion conditions, will be stopping at a braking distance of three hundred metres. Everybody should think over if these few minutes spared in this way are really so important”, says Mr. Pavel Surý, Director General of SŽDC.

On selected sections where people cross track most of all, SŽDC in cooperation with the Czech Police carry out regular checks which should have a mostly preventive effect. Maybe this is also the reason why the numbers of train fatalities decrease year by year. Even then they still do not look good.

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