THE Upper House has adopted a Liberal Party resolution to refer the problem of safety at railway level crossings to a parliamentary standing committee.
On a motion proposed last week by Opposition Upper House Leader, Philip Davis, the Parliament’s Road Safety Committee will be required to report by the end of February next year on the implementation of technologies to improve safety at level crossings.
Mr Davis said rail crossing safety was an urgent priority following the loss of 11 lives in the collision of a truck and train near Kerang on 5 June, which brought to 19 the number of Victorians to die in truck-train collisions since October, 2002.
Three people were killed at a St Albans crossing in August, 2004, after a train hit their car.
“The Australasian Railway Association calculates the immediate damage from collisions over the past 14 months at $200 million nationally, and collisions in Victoria have accounted for most of that cost,” Mr Davis said.
“Level crossings pose a high risk of very major incidents, as we have seen in recent times, but it is of real concern that rail operators reported more than 90 near misses in Victoria during 2006.
“The risk will increase dramatically in the light of forecasts that heavy haulage traffic on the eastern Australian transport corridor will double in the next five to 10 years. This makes it imperative to identify the principal causes and the most effective solutions, and to begin implementing those solutions as soon as possible.
“Work by Rail CRC scientists has found high-risk driver behaviour to be a key factor in crashes at rail crossings, yet Victoria has no research-based educational programs to improve driver behaviour,” he said.
“The Government’s recently announced program to upgrade crossings came in the immediate aftermath of the Kerang disaster, but it has been put in place in the absence of sound evidence to define the most effective safety measures and the areas of most urgent need.”
