Speeding Lorry demolishes Hartlebury level crossing

[Islineclear3_1]

Paint yellow box junctions on every level crossing and install cameras (where practical). Camera linked to wigwags and flashes any road user passing them when red lights come on.

Usual box junction rules apply with hefty fine if ignored

Of course, this will require expense but can be reclaimed through fines

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Aren't there any fire or ambulance stations that have them in the area then?
Google maps streetview shows wigwags here in the centre of Huddersfield: https://www.google.com/maps/@53.642...4!1sz3zTndzwLahA_m9vYPSvIQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 so maybe a lot of people should be losing their licenses!
I can think of half a dozen sets within an hour's drive of my home, and that's on the relatively few roads that I use in about 60 square miles.

Yes, there are wigwags at both the fire station and ambulance station on the edge of town (not in the centre as it's outside the ring-road, just!)... but some motorists will have driven past those every day for years and never had them flash. You may say that's no excuse and you'd be right, but if we want to reduce incidents at crossings we have to take a holistic approach. Making questions about level crossings compulsory on the driving theory test (rather than the luck of the draw as they are now) would help educate tomorrow's drivers but will do nothing for those who passed their test 20 years ago. Using both types of signals might reduce misuse, so why not try it?

Ideally all driving test routes should include a level crossing, but there are places, like Huddersfield, where that would be impractical. Fire station wigwags are less impactful as if they aren't activated there's little or no "feedback" for the driver.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

If you're not familiar with them I would expect the normal reaction to be more cautious with them, not less!

I think the issue is more likely complacency from frequent users learning that there's normally a few seconds wait before a train arrives at the crossing. I also wonder whether the number of near miss videos floating around the internet now are really helping - they generally don't show when people do get hit, just when they get away with it, no matter how close. It gives the impression that you can gamble and get away with it.

Being unfamiliar could go either way, to be fair. You make a good point about "near miss" videos though: I'm not sure we should go down the route of showing collisions in public information films, but then again it could be just what's needed to get the message across. Packets of cigarettes have very graphic images warning of the effects of smoking, maybe big billboards near level crossings should show graphic images of the effects of gambling with a train?

 

[pdeaves]

Paint yellow box junctions on every level crossing

I think this would just create a different problem. People who will not obey barriers (physical obstructions in the way) are unlikely to obey road markings. With a sample size of just one, a 'box' junction I pass regularly, I can emphatically state that users generally do not pay the slightest bit of attention to some yellow paint.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

With a sample size of just one, a 'box' junction I pass regularly, I can emphatically state that users generally do not pay the slightest bit of attention to some yellow paint.

Indeed, but in London, there are many box junction cameras that are active. I got caught out recently when someone barged in front of me leaving me stranded on the box junction. TfL do not accept this as an excuse and I got fined

 

[Meerkat]

What does a box junction marking achieve? They aren’t generally stopping on the crossing, and certainly aren’t intending to.

 

[AndrewE]

What does a box junction marking achieve? They aren’t generally stopping on the crossing, and certainly aren’t intending to.

Time you read the Highway code again, I think. You are forbidden to Enter a box junction apart from in certain circumstances!

 

[swt_passenger]

What does a box junction marking achieve? They aren’t generally stopping on the crossing, and certainly aren’t intending to.

The box junction markings are supposed to prevent a nose to tail queue forming over the crossing. If traffic is that slow moving I’d not follow someone over a crossing irrespective of whether there was a box marked or not, that’s just what I was taught over 40 years ago...

 

[Bletchleyite]

Good lord is there anything that can be done to protect innocent rail passengers from idiot road users?

Close level crossings - which there is a programme of doing.

 

[Meerkat]

Time you read the Highway code again, I think. You are forbidden to Enter a box junction apart from in certain circumstances!

Yeah, you can’t enter unless you can leave. I can’t imagine people intend to sit in their car across the railway tracks!

 

[Islineclear3_1]

Yeah, you can’t enter unless you can leave. I can’t imagine people intend to sit in their car across the railway tracks!

You would be surprised. I have witnessed many times....

 

[AndrewE]

Yeah, you can’t enter unless you can leave. I can’t imagine people intend to sit in their car across the railway tracks!

But they do...
Your previous comment about "intending to leave" gives the game away. Your intention to exit is irrelevant (on a railway LC anyway - in fact especially on a railway LC.) You cannot enter unless your escape is unobstructed.

 

[swt_passenger]

You would be surprised. I have witnessed many times....

I’ve been flashed at for not moving until there’s at least a car length space the other side of the crossing; and when I have moved, the idiot behind me has ended up stopped on the tracks. (At Mount Pleasant - Southampton.). People can be very impatient...

 

[furnessvale]

Close level crossings - which there is a programme of doing.

Many years ago, a bridge over the railway was built at Hoghton, Lancs, so that traffic could avoid the level crossing. Even so, permission to close the LX was, and still is, refused.

Faced with such idiotic intransigence, what are the railways expected to do?

 

[philthetube]

Has there been research done as to whether the problem is drivers misunderstanding wig wags or it is just drivers not wanting to wait.

If the former, maybe they should be redesigned to be like a traffic light but with 2 red lights alternately flashing, so that they would show a green most of the time. But would still satisfy the requirement for all vehicles to stop.

 

[TheSel]

IIRC (from memory) barriers don’t start to move until between 7 and 11 secs after the amber comes on. You actually get significantly more notice of the barriers than you get notice of the red at a normal road traffic signal.

That time allows quite a significant distance along the road if moving at that apparent speed.

Not in any way condoning the actions of certain motorists here, and I suspect that people with far greater knowledge of psychology than I will already have considered this, but there is an argument that if the delay between initiating a warning of an impending hazard, and that hazard becoming an actuality, is significant, you actually INCREASE the likelihood that people will ignore the warning (because they think they've got 'safe time'). This is particularly the case where the hazard itself is not visible, but the warning of the hazard is.

Hopefully someone, somewhere will have identified the optimum 'warning' period to minimise the likelihood of this happening - but that's the point, you can minimize the likelihood - but you can't eradicate the problem altogether. Or, to put it another way, as soon as you make something idiot proof, they invent a better class of idiot.

 

[Llanigraham]

Yeah, you can’t enter unless you can leave. I can’t imagine people intend to sit in their car across the railway tracks!

Well that isn't what the Highway Code, and I can assure you people do queue up across level crossings, Box markings or not!

 

[AndrewE]

Well that isn't what the Highway Code [says], and I can assure you people do queue up across level crossings, Box markings or not!

(seeing as it's panto season) I will reply "Oh yes it is!"
It is absolutely explicit and cannot be interpreted in any other way: https://www.highwaycodeuk.co.uk/road-junctions.html says

You MUST NOT enter the box until your exit road or lane is clear.

(apart from when your route is only obstructed by oncoming traffic or traffic turning right, neither of which is likely to occur on a railway level crossing!)
How much more clearly could it be put? - and note their bold capitals in the original.

 

[pdeaves]

In the case of eejits driving onto a crossing when the barriers are down, box markings will make no difference. In the example video given in post 1, the exit was clear anyway but the vehicle should still have stopped. Barrier mangling would not have been prevented by some yellow paint.

 

[Meerkat]

I reckon there is a “can’t quit now” psychology going on.
The lights flash, the driver decides early that they can’t wait and will accelerate through, and then they stick with that decision even as it becomes apparent it’s going to be close, then iffy, then ‘oh ****’.
As a student I rode into campus across the infamous, but now closed, Canley crossing. You could be stuck there for ages as train after train went through so I gradually worked out how far away I could be when the lights started and still get through. Inevitably this ended up with a desperate (tight deadline for handing in an essay) decision to push that point and I ended up limboing under the closing gate as I rode through.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

A shame we can't mount great big pointy spikes on the front of trains, like a medieval lance... idiot kebab, anyone?

 

[Llanigraham]

(seeing as it's panto season) I will reply "Oh yes it is!"
It is absolutely explicit and cannot be interpreted in any other way: https://www.highwaycodeuk.co.uk/road-junctions.html says
(apart from when your route is only obstructed by oncoming traffic or traffic turning right, neither of which is likely to occur on a railway level crossing!)
How much more clearly could it be put? - and note their bold capitals in the original.

The actual wording:

174
Box junctions. These have criss-cross yellow lines painted on the road (download ‘Road markings’). You MUST NOT enter the box until your exit road or lane is clear. However, you may enter the box and wait when you want to turn right, and are only stopped from doing so by oncoming traffic, or by other vehicles waiting to turn right. At signalled roundabouts you MUST NOT enter the box unless you can cross over it completely without stopping.
Law TSRGD regs 10(1) & 29(2)

Please note the wording I have highlighted in red.

And going back to a previous post about people queuing across the rails, I can think of a couple of signallers that have actually bounced barriers on the roofs of cars, and even at my Box, and especially on Race Days, it was quite normal to actually start the lowering sequence to get people to move off the crossing, although not actually going as far as hitting anyone.

 

[option]

Perhaps there was no one available to man the crossing all day and even if there was, you would be passing signals at danger all day which will probably incur more delays than if you just fixed the problem in the first place.

Temporary fence across the road, closing the road.
Then it wouldn't need manning.

 

[AndrewE]

Temporary fence across the road, closing the road. Then it wouldn't need manning.

But you can't just close a public right of way (without going through all the legal formalities.) It's why there is always a policeman in uniform at a traffic census: it is illegal for anyone else to stop someone using the public highway.

 

[Dunfanaghy Rd]

I haven't seen any mention of whether the truck driver has had his collar felt. Did the police get his registration number?
Re: box junctions. The beauty of them is that a camera can record infringements. Simple, and no arguments about whether the crossing kit was working properly. By the time the local paper reports a few dozen (hundred!) cases in the magistrates courts, maybe people will take notice.
Pat

 

[AndrewE]

The actual wording:

Please note the wording I have highlighted in red.

And going back to a previous post about people queuing across the rails, I can think of a couple of signallers that have actually bounced barriers on the roofs of cars, and even at my Box, and especially on Race Days, it was quite normal to actually start the lowering sequence to get people to move off the crossing, although not actually going as far as hitting anyone.

Which is exactly what I posted. You MUST NOT enter the box until your exit road or lane is clear. What word is unclear there? Granted, there is a caveat about a blocked exit which will clear, but does that apply on a level crossing?
I think that in a signalman's shoes with cars driving onto and blocking a crossing I would be tempted to call the police, maybe 999, and make sure it was logged, even if they did refuse to take any action.

 

[Llanigraham]

Which is exactly what I posted. You MUST NOT enter the box until your exit road or lane is clear. What word is unclear there? Granted, there is a caveat about a blocked exit which will clear, but does that apply on a level crossing?

It isn't a caveat, it is part of the Legislation.

I think that in a signalman's shoes with cars driving onto and blocking a crossing I would be tempted to call the police, maybe 999, and make sure it was logged, even if they did refuse to take any action.

Thanks, but I liked keeping a good relationship with the Police where my Box was, and that is certainly not the way to do it.

 

[father_jack]

There should be no such thing as an "ambler gambler", speed limits on the approach to crossings or even road junctions are worked that you must be able to stop your vehicle in the distance that you see to be clear.

I'll ask a question- what does a red light mean and what does an amber light mean..... Ask around you and I'd reckon you'll get 60% failure rate

 

[Llanigraham]

There should be no such thing as an "ambler gambler", speed limits on the approach to crossings or even road junctions are worked that you must be able to stop your vehicle in the distance that you see to be clear.

I'll ask a question- what does a red light mean and what does an amber light mean..... Ask around you and I'd reckon you'll get 60% failure rate

I'd put the percentage higher than that!

 

[sw1ller]

There should be no such thing as an "ambler gambler", speed limits on the approach to crossings or even road junctions are worked that you must be able to stop your vehicle in the distance that you see to be clear.

I'll ask a question- what does a red light mean and what does an amber light mean..... Ask around you and I'd reckon you'll get 60% failure rate

I keep getting shouted at for using “amber”. “ITS YELLOW!!!”

(I know you were on about road signals)