‘Scrap level crossings’ call as Egypt driver dies

[DJKeefy]

A driver was killed and his assistant seriously injured when a train collided with their truck on a level crossing in the Upper Egyptian Governorate of Beni Sueif a week ago, a railway safety expert said yesterday. Such accidents happen frequently in Egypt.

The incident has prompted expert Ahmed Warshan to call for abolishing level crossings, which he describes as an old solution for regulating road/rail traffic.
The train driver was also seriously injured in the accident, which happened near the village of el-Fashn on the outskirts of Beni Sueif City.

Warshan has called for every level crossing that meets a public road to be replaced by a bridge or underpass to prevent more accidents.
"Level crossings are a 19th century solution. In post-revolution Egypt, it’s high time we do something to separate rail and road traffic," he stressed.
The Government must phase out all of the nation's level crossings and ban the building of new ones, although some officials argue that it is financially impractical to close all crossings.
"Level crossings on high-speed or local lines are safe if used properly,” a Ministry of Transport official says, adding that the Ministry will start teaching the public to obey the safety rules for using railway crossings.
But the opponents of the level crossings strongly believe that they are a significant danger for both road and rail users.

Egypt's Railway Authority (ERA) argues that it would be impractical to replace all crossings. Closing one requires governmental approval.
"Level crossings are safe if used correctly by drivers and it is simply impractical to suggest they should be replaced," an ERA official said, adding that it would cost the Government an estimated average of LE1 million to replace each crossing with an alternative.
"Most people who misuse level crossings know that they're breaking the law, but that doesn't seem to stop them. Other motorists and rail users are caught up in delays and disruption caused by people deliberately ignoring warning lights, and jumping barriers at level crossings," the Authority official said.
However, Warshan insisted that several level crossings in Beni Sueif should be closed down and replaced with bridges.


Source: The Egyptian Gazette

[DJKeefy]

I dont know if any of you have seen the scenes at level crossings in Egypt, even after 10 years I still cant believe what I see Its like the Egyptians have to get across that level crossing to collect millions of pounds at the other side, and the quickest person wins. I just cant get my head around it, you call for a plumber, electrictian or for some other service you need and the 1hr they tell you might be 1 day or even 1 week, yet at a level crossing they cant wait even 1 minute, so why the rush when their timing for anything containing work is so slow.

The train is coming and they tilt theirr motorbike under the barrier and push it to the other side, people stand on the tracks while the train passes on another track, I have to turn away sometimes, Ive even see them on many occasions when a train is snail crawling, climb up the train and get into a carriage and then jump of the other side.

After the train as gone then its all chaos, they have no sense of right and left side of the road, all the people/cars/bikes on both sides of the barriers take the complete road up, so when the barriers open they end up head on with the traffic from the other side so it takes them twice as long to get across.

[LovelyLadyLux]

The very first time I ever took the train from Cairo to Luxor I took the tourist night train and had a sleeper. Thank heavens I was sleeping on the bottom bunk cause in the middle of the night the train came to an abrupt stop and I was thrown out of the bunk. Only injury I broke a toe. To this day I have no idea if the train hit something or what but it came to a real abrupt smacking grinding stop (not that it was really going all that fast unlike the bullet trains in Japan).

I doubt Egypt could afford to build under or overpasses all over and I can quite envision them putting down the rails to stop the cars and then seeing all the Egyptian boys driving "AROUND" them!

[Horus]

People do the most crazy things, even in the UK we have idiots who will try to get passed a closing barrier, or run across as a fast train is approaching. the problem is made much worse in Egypt due to their total lack of any traffic rules and enforcement, or so it seems.