Pretoria - The Railway Safety Regulator (RSR) has urged the public to adhere to safety signage and practice responsible driving at level crossings.
This follows two more level crossing accidents on Saturday, in the same week as the fatal accident at Blackheath in the Western Cape, where a train collided with a minibus taxi transporting 13 children to school.
On Saturday morning, the driver of a VW Citi Golf was killed when his car collided with a Metrorail train at a level crossing outside Zuurbekom Station. The driver's vehicle was struck by the train when he attempted to drive over the level crossing while the warning lights were flashing and the booms were still down.
The Citi Golf driver is suspected to have followed three cars preceding him, who had ignored the closed booms and zigzagged between them.
Later in the day, three people were injured and taken to hospital after a Transnet Freight Rail train collided with a VW Jetta at a level crossing between Boskruil and Klerksdorp, two other occupants of the vehicle escaped unharmed.
"Despite measures taken to increase the protection of the level crossings, road users continue to ignore the rules of safe behaviour when traversing level crossings. It takes anything from 500 metres to one kilometre for a train to come to a stop, from its normal speed and it is practically impossible for a train to stop in the time it takes the train driver to see a car on the level crossing and apply brakes," the regulator said in a statement.
It also noted that enforcement and visible policing of level crossings need to be significantly increased to arrest the carnage at level crossings, which is due mostly to irresponsible driver behavior, which accounts for over 90 percent of level crossing accidents.
