NDR North German Broadcasting
Hamburg (ots)
More people died in accidents at level crossings in 2022 than at any time since 2010. This was the result of an evaluation of data from the Federal Office for Railway Accident Investigations (BEU), which is available to the NDR. According to this, 42 people died in 146 accidents on federal routes, and 165 people were injured last year. Although the number of level crossings has fallen by almost a fifth over the past twelve years, according to Deutsche Bahn (DB), the number of accidents at level crossings with and without barriers has practically not changed.
“Every accident is one too many and every accident is tragic,” DB spokesman Achim Stauss told NDR. “But the absolute number is still quite small compared to what else happens on the road.” Measured against the number of almost 16,000 level crossings in the DB network, around 140 collisions per year are “a very low value”. Level crossings are the most accident-prone places in train traffic. Deaths and injuries are common when road vehicles, pedestrians and trains collide. Since the 1950s, the number of level crossings has fallen by about half, mainly due to the closure and sale of routes, and the number of victims has fallen massively, but development has stagnated for about ten years.
According to the DB, misconduct by road users is the cause of accidents in more than 97 percent. In more than a third of accidents, closed half-barriers are bypassed. Deutsche Bahn, the Federal Ministry of Transport and the bodies responsible for roads in the federal states and municipalities invest millions of euros every year for the removal of level crossings and technical modernization. But the need is huge, and according to Deutsche Bahn, a significant proportion of the systems are in need of modernization. Half of the accidents happen at crossings that are not technically secured, i.e. are not equipped with light signals or barriers. Modifications are expensive, and planning and approval processes are usually very lengthy.
On Tuesday, March 28, NDR Info will be reporting all day in its radio and television programs on the subject, “Panorama 3” from 9:15 p.m. in detail on NDR television. Additional graphics can be found on NDR.de and tagesschau.de.
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Original content from: NDR Norddeutscher Rundfunk, transmitted by news aktuell
