SAFETY AT THE CROSSINGS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 823, 18 November 1929, Page 8

SAFETY AT THE CROSSINGS

IX spite ot' continued agitation the number of level-crossings eliminated last year did not exceed eight, according to the annual report of the Main Highways Board which sets out several important principles having a bearing on this question. It' the Railway Department’s best efforts can effect the elimination of oply eight crossings a year, the road-using public will have to wait a very long time before all level-crossings are eliminated and the highways are freed of the terrible menace that, level-crossings now constitute. Particular importance will therefore be attached to the Highways Board’s conclusion that in the meantime a share of the money might better be applied to the improvement of approaches to existing crossings, and provision of warning appliances where those devices have not already been installed.

The adoption of this policy would give an immediate benefit throughout the country, whereas, if the present policy of gradual elimination is continued unaltered, its effects will be felt only in the immediate localities where the alterations are effected. Unfortunately, the Railway Department has in the past shown a tendency to regard only a modest improvement, or the installation of a warning device, as reason for further procrastination in the elimination of the crossing concerned. Even now there is no very convincing evidence that the department is prepared to treat users of the road fairly. It professes to accept the ridiculous doctrine that responsibility for an accident must in any circumstances rest with the motorist. Yet there are crossings within a radius of five milos from the Auckland Post Office at which the visibility is so bad that the only ingredients required for an accident are the arrival at the crossing of train and car at the same time. At some of these “blind” crossings, many of which are still entirely innocent of up-to-date warning signals, the motorist has no chance of escaping a collision if the factors of the moment happen to be arrayed against him. For that reason there will he general endorsement of the Highways Board’s latest pronouncement on the subject, but only so long as it is definitely understood that the wider task of eliminating all level-crossings by a progressive scheme shall be merely slowed down, and not halted, by the adoption of the new policy. The board is offering to bear 50 per cent, of the cost Of installing and maintaining efficient warning devices. Greater care should, alter this, be taken to see that the warnings are always functioning, and heavy penalties should he inflicted on those who interfere with them. Under present traffic conditions they arc the lighthouses of the road.