Mayor’s View – 7th May, 2009
With the tourist season now upon us there is an increase in traffic on our roads. At the same time the cane crushing season is soon to commence. There will be additional road use and many visitors unfamiliar with the conditions
Two separate rail fatalities in our region are the subject of ongoing inquests. There have already been consequences, beyond the tragic loss of lives.
The train drivers’ union remains concerned about the safety of the driver’s compartment on the Tilt Train. Their concerns appear to be the sloping nose of the Tilt Train and the fact that the Cardwell accident involved a truck riding up onto the driver’s compartment, killing the two train drivers. .This service was temporarily suspended, due to these and possibly other concerns
One of the consequences of the rail fatalities has been the roll out of a comprehensive plan to improve safety at rail crossings for the main northern line.
Cane railway crossings are separately assessed and there is no funding to improve the safety of these crossings.
My concern as mayor, which has been expressed to all the relevant parties, is that the installation of boom gates at many of our Queensland Rail (QR) crossings and the operations of ‘fail-safe systems’ may cause undue delays and frustrations to the public, tourists and trucking companies.
‘Fail-safe’ means that if there is some problem or failure with a safety system for whatever reason, the system automatically makes the crossing safe. The boom gates are lowered and the highway closed. This could occur at any time and would not mean that a train was actually approaching the crossing.
If this occurred at the Butler Street crossing in Tully or the Edith Street crossing in Innisfail, there are adjacent railway stations and ready access to technicians, railway staff or police to attend to the problem.
However, if this occurs at the crossings south of Cardwell, in an area that is less populated, there is not the ready means to attend to the problem.
The highway could be closed to all traffic for hours, waiting for people with the relevant expertise to attend to the problem.
The traffic queues would be horrendous and the potential for pile-ups and frayed tempers is very real.
The ‘Cassowary Coast Local Disaster Management Group’ recognises the potential for such problems. Its members are concerned and they have called on QR to respond by explaining their procedures for dealing with such main road closures. This has not occurred to date.
Inspector David Tucker of Innisfail District Police advises me that for the first few months of this year there has in fact been a reduction in road accidents, compared with the previous period.
There has been an increase in police enforcement activity and it could be that the “speed/drink driving/seat belt message” is getting through.
The two areas that have been associated with increasing accidents though are “inattention” and “not driving to the conditions”. People are often preoccupied, tired or talking on speaker phone calls and therefore more likely to be involved in an accident.
Inspector Tucker used the example of a driver colliding with a feral pig at night in circumstances where driving to the known conditions could have alerted the driver to this possibility and avoided the accident.
So please, in this upcoming tourist and cane railway season, keep yourselves and others safe on our region’s roads.