 Car struck by barrier at crossing
"Mortimer" <me@> wrote in message
news:6eadnX0LrvzX9JrVnZ2dneKdnZydnZ2d@plusnet...
>>> > A Berkshire man wants radical changes to the road layout around a
>>> > "dangerous" level crossing after his vehicle was crushed when he got
>>> > stuck
>>> > in traffic.
> The bigger danger would be where there is a side road just *beyond* a
> crossing, because you could quite legally start to enter the box junction
> because there is a big enough gap, only to find after you'd passed the
> point of no return that a car had pulled out from the side road into your
> space. However I doubt whether there are any level crossings that this
> applies to as it would be unsafe for the very reason that I've described.
If this is the crossing at Wokingham station, then I think this is exactly
the position that applies; namely, that a Give Way (at a mini-roundabout)
applies immediately after the crossing to traffic heading north.
From memory, I'm not sure whether there is space even for a normal car to
wait at the GiveWay safely clear of the crossing.. there certainly isn't
space for an HGV.. Accordingly, I'm quite certain that unless the barriers
are initiated only manually and only after a visual check it is perfectly
feasible for a vehicle being properly driven to be hit by a descending
barrier.. And since that's why the box is there I'm equally sure that those
would be the instructions under which the keeper would be operating.
--
Walter Mann | 
