Press release 13 August 2012: Number of Level Crossing Accidents Continues Decreasing
During the 1st half-year of 2012 took place 12 railway accidents. There was 4 motor vehicle – train collisions resulting in one person being injured, there was no fatalities. 7 persons trespassing on railway were hit by railway vehicles. 4 persons involved were injured and 3 died.
There as been two times fewer collisions than during the similar periods in last two years. Another important indicator is that during the first half-year of 2011 and 2012 there was no collisions with fatal consequences. Most of the collisions that occurred took place during the first quarter of the year due to choosing driving speed not matching the weather conditions or due to negligence of motor vehicle drivers. This shows that our railway infrastructure is already reasonably safe and the accidents happen mostly due to traffic regulation violations. The measures applied during the recent years for making railways safer, such as introduction of LED traffic lights, closure of problematic level crossings, improvement of level crossing visibility, have had their positive influence on overall level crossing safety.
In the first half-year of 2012 the number of pedestrians hit by railway rolling stock increased by one compared to the same period of 2011. The number of fatalities and persons injured remained the same. The main reasons for such accidents are continuously negligence and carelessness, as well as trespassing.
The improvements for making level and pedestrian crossing safer continue. Most of the pedestrian crossings will be audited in course of passenger platform reconstruction and the perimeter of major stations will be fenced, thus limiting the crossing of railways in undesignated areas. All the automatic level crossing lights must be equipped with LED lights by the year 2018 and therefore several railway level crossings located on high density lines will get LED lights and level crossing gates already this year (Tallinn-Tapa and Tapa-Tartu lines).
We also continue our efforts for increasing public awareness about railway safety issues in cooperation with international railway safety promoter Operation Lifesaver Estonia (OLE). This year’s campaign “Know Your Opponent” called on people to notice trains as a larger vehicle and assess its driving speed correctly.
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Additional information:
Anu Võlma
Chief Specialist of Public Relations
Estonian Technical Surveillance Authority
Sõle 23A, 10614 Tallinn
667 2031
50 11 585