Safe Speed Forums

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/ukfs ... id=4164736

I know this is a hobby horse of mine, but why in cases like this do we never hear "train drivers told to watch their speed" or "police crack down on speeding train drivers" or similar?

Around 300 people a year are killed by trains in the UK. Making it about the most dangerous form of transportation mile-for-mile.

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but it's usually not the train's passengers that are killed is it?

...most of them wearing a Burberry cap with a can of spray paint in hand. Bleach in the gene pool if you ask me

As a matter of interest, train drivers do get checked for possible speeding by inspectors with radar guns similar to those used by the police From a safety point of view there is usually a margin of 50% for overspeeding built in to the posted line speeds. I've seen a case where a driver went through a 40mph limit on a crossover at 80 mph without derailing but it didn't do the points any good!
Seriously though we had a case on Good Friday where two lads were killed in Darlington by a train doing about 50 mph in the dark. They were on the track with a group of other teenagers and the post mortem found they were inebriated. There was no suggestion at the inquest that they were "playing chicken" but they were clearly unaware that trains can't always stop in a short distance. In the same place the driver of a Virgin Voyager did manage to pull up some months previously when he saw a man on the track. Unfortunately quite a few people decide to "end it all" using a train. A woman recently jumped off the platform at Northallerton in front of a freight train doing 40 mph. It must have been a horrible death as eye-witness accounts said that she was dragged under the train until she literally came apart.

Sorry I'm not sure of the point your making here - are you saying that train drivers are speeding and should slow down in case people are on the line or are you just having a dig at the those who constantly target car drivers?

Simple fact of the matter is that it takes well over a mile to stop a train so unless you want all trains to drive at a maximum of 30mph then its largely irrevant how fast the train is going. Line speeds are not set in accordance with the density of housing but for the layout of the track. Trains are not by and large driven 'by line of sight', rather the driver has to memorise the track in his head and know what is round the corner. Therefore it is very unlikely that the driver is going to be able to stop if he rounds a corner and find kids on the line. Children should be taught the dangers of playing on the railways and that trains can't no matter how good the driver is stop in the same way a car can. Some people may find this offensive but quite frankly any children playing 'chicken' on the line as I believe this lad was deserve to take the Darwin award for stupidity.

Yeah, we've been down this road before. Zamzara appears to be suggesting in a roundabout sort of way, that the weight of responsibility for the safety of indiviudals near a railway lies logically with the indivdual him/herself. Thus, if this applies to railways, why doesn't it apply to roads as well, why are drivers constantly being told to slow down?
There is unfortunately a logical flaw in this attractive argument, namely pedestrians near railway lines are called 'intruders'; they shouldn't be there in the first place. Thus trains should reasonably be expected to travel at their maximum speed without their drivers having to look out for stray people. The same cannot be said of roads where pedestrians are quite entitled to be at the roadside or to cross the road. It is therefore quite reasonable to urge drivers to exercise care, and with that comes a requirement to slow down where necessary.
The two situations are quite distinctly different.

I think it depends Rip. Obviously pedestrians are entitled to cross the road and I very much support taking care and driving at a safe speed for the conditions.

But the people I'm talking about are the ones that deliberately piss about in the road, in exactly the same way that railway tresspassers do, for the sole purpose of causing problems to traffic or to see if they 'have what it takes' to dodge a car.

am

Yes they are private property and unathurised entry is tresspass.



I think there maybe some limitations, for example I think drink driving is still covered on private property isn't it? I maybe wrong so does anyone know any different?

Yes you are right. Trespass on railway lines and installations to which the general public are not permitted access is a criminal offence in the UK unlike other countries.
With this goes the requirement for Network Rail to adequately fence railway property to protect it from trespass by people and animals. If you go to somewhere like France or Germany trespassing on railway lines is not an offence but you do it at your own risk, only very high speed lines like TGV and ICE are fenced.

[quote]Around 300 people a year are killed by trains in the UK. Making it about the most dangerous form of transportation mile-for-mile.[/quote]

I'm surprised that nobody has questioned this statistic. The fatality figure for 2002/3 for train incidents was only 10 of which only 6 were passwngers.

This is from the hse annual report [url]http://www.hse.gov.uk/railways/annualreport0203/annualreport.pdf[/url]

it depends how you want to define an 'incident', doesn't it. Do you really believe that there were only 4 non-passenger fatalities in all the UK during 2002/3??

edit: I've just read your link and let's just say that maybe you're being a little selective as they're explicitly excluding trespassers and suicides:

"A total of 50 passengers, railway staff and other members of the public were
fatally injured (excluding trespassers and suicides), up 14 (39%) on the previous year"

Ist another story in tonight's Manchester paper.

But this time - she fell through gap between train door und platform as it pulled into platform.. She fell out of train und beneath the train und her hand was severed

Some people have not the sense they were born with...

Playing chicken -- und spate of kids running in front of cars und fire engines per this Manchester paper as well in another story.

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I chose the 10 "train incident" fatalities as being broadly equivalent to the traffic fatalities we are trying to reduce which I suppose I would class as "Vehicle Incidents" I would agree that some more of the 50 may be equivalent to road accidents. But falling down steps and suicides don't really count. I don't suppose that those who use their cars to commit suicide count as RTAs. Even 50 is certainly a lot less than 300, and surely to make an argument for rail travel being more dangerous per mile travelled then one should be concentrating on passenger fatalities.

It is certainly true that incidents that are known to be suicides are excluded from road fatality figures. However, I suspect some suicides on the roads are not declared as such either because the authorities don't know, or to spare the feelings of relatives. I could well imagine that ten or so single-vehicle motorcycle accidents a year were suicides.


No, we have to look at the total fatalities. It wouldn't be acceptable if car travel was 100% safe for passengers, but killed thousands of pedestrians a year.

As far as I know the DfT never attempt to separate out trespassers from suicides. As a stab in the dark I might guess about two-thirds were suicides, which would leave the railways overall somewhat safer than the roads, but not by the huge margin that is often claimed.

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Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

I may have misinterpreted something here, but for the railways surely the only meaningful statistic is of passenger deaths? The difference being pedestrians have a perfect right to be on the vast majority of roads, whereas to tresspass on the railway is illegal. It's fairly clear you should not be on the rail line and most urban lines are well fenced anyway.

Now if little chav is playing chicken on the M6 - paper headlines "horror he was wrong" - little chav playing chicken on railwaylines - papers seem to think it's ok.
Little chav drops rocks on cars on M6 --PAPERS SHOUT "HORROR"Little chav does it to a train - very little noise.
Rock on car drivers head = a few people killed.
Rock on train drivers head = lots of people killed/injured etc etc

Problem - on M6 cars probably only doing 70 ( MORE LIKE 100MPH, MAX) and cars have decent braking and steering . On main line from Euston to Glasgow trains travel at up to 125mph , take up to 1.75 miles to stop and have no steering .
Of course we now see the "human rights idiots" at large - little chav got on to the railwayline through a hole etc - but by doing so little chav was

BREAKING THE LAW

Is it an offense to drive a car on private property under the influence of alcohol?

I have reversed my car from private property into my garage whilst being probably over the limit. I assumed it was legal because I was on private property.

If you go abroad, you rarely see fences alongside railway lines, especially in the country. Here all lines are fenced off, and in some urban areas they have been forced to install razor wire in an attempt to keep the vandals off the track - with mixed success. Not that it would have made much difference in this case it would appear.

It really does say something about youth culture in this country. Time was when if a train driver saw kids on a bridge he would wave. Now he's more likely to cover up his face in case they lob a brick through the windscreen. Same thing happens on some stretches of motorway. I'll resist the temptation to go completely OT and talk about relaxation of the licensing laws...