Transport Department figures obtained by The Advertiser reveal drivers reported 213 near misses between March last year, when the new line to the Entertainment Centre became operational, and the start of January.

Near misses involving vehicles tallied 121, while the number of pedestrian incidents was counted as 92.

A near miss is when, in the opinion of the driver, there is the significant risk of causing injury or death to any person or the potential to cause property damage.

Rail, Tram and Bus Union branch secretary Ashley Waddell said the figures showed some commuters were treating trams “with contempt”.

He said drivers had to be “very cautious” in the city because of the high number of near misses.

“Especially down along North Tce you get taxis and courier vans that do U-turns in front of trams and you get pedestrians that will try to run across in front of them,” he said.

“They’ll take the trams on.

“It’s an issue through the whole CBD.

“The police need to better police the tramline through the CBD.”

Pedestrian Council of Australia president Harold Scruby called for jaywalking fines to be increased to at least $100.

At present in South Australia they are $55, which includes the Victims of Crime levy.

“Also wherever there is … high pedestrian activity the speed limit should be 40km/h,” Mr Scruby said.

A poolice spokesman said transit officers monitored the North Tce tram line daily.

SA Police also frequently initiated “Operation Amble”, which targeted city pedestrians.

Transport Department spokesman Ross Stargett said many of the incidents involved pedestrians crossing tracks “in an unsafe manner at non-designated crossing points”.

He noted no fatalities had occurred on the tram network in the past six years.

“While the majority of pedestrians and motorists obey the law and behave in a safe manner, risk-taking behaviours continue to occur both within the CBD and elsewhere on the network,” he said.

via AdelaideNow

They are the people who were killed in October 2002 when The Ghan train he was driving ploughed into a car and a bus queued across the busy Park Tce railway crossing at Salisbury.

Although almost eight years have passed, the trauma the Pacific National train driver suffered has not diminished.

“I still think, `I’m home to my wife every night and my kids and there’s someone sitting at home elsewhere missing a partner, or a wife or a young kid’,” the 49-year-old says. “I’ve had Christmases with my family and they’re missing theirs.

“But (psychologists and colleagues) say to you, it’s not your fault, but you still think of things like that.

“I had three months off work after that, and it still haunts me every day.”

Mr Parslow feels compelled to tell his story – and that of other train drivers – in light of last weekend’s accidental death of a two-year-old boy at Nantawarra.

The toddler had wandered away from his family’s rural property and was playing on the tracks at Nantawarra Crossing, near Port Wakefield, just after 1pm on May 22 when he was hit by a freight train unable to stop in time.

Dark memories of the Salisbury tragedy came rushing back for Mr Parslow.

He said he was immediately filled with dread when he heard about the accident.

“We left Adelaide freight terminal at 12.55pm on Saturday and we were going over the Port Wakefield bridge when the emergency call came over the radio,” he says.

“The drivers said they’d hit a young kid and automatically your heart just goes into your mouth.

“I have a 13-month-old grandchild and as soon as they said that, it just hits you.”

Mr Parslow’s story is not isolated: the trauma and grief of fatal accidents reverberate across the industry.

He estimates 20 per cent of drivers he has worked with have been involved in a serious accident at a railway crossing.

He talks about a colleague who accidentally killed a man crossing tracks two years ago. “He still hasn’t told his kids about the accident,” Mr Parslow says.

“We’ve got 48 train drivers at the Adelaide Freight Terminal, a good bunch of blokes, so when that happened on Saturday, there would have been phone calls going around making sure everyone was OK.”

He describes the feeling of helplessness drivers have just before an unavoidable accident.

“In a car, if you see someone, you can try to swerve . . . but it’s the inevitability of what’s going to happen – you’re looking at them and they’re looking at you.

“And what can we do? There is nothing else we can do except wait for it to happen.

“And then you have to deal with the process after it.”

Over his three decades of driving, Mr Parslow has been involved in eight level crossing accidents. The father of two says he still suffers physically – as well as emotionally – from the 2002 Salisbury accident, which also injured 26 people.

“I sit at home at night and my wife says, `Why are you shaking? You’re sitting there shaking like anything’,” he says.”And I’ll be sitting here eating tea; shaking. I don’t think I’m doing it, but I am.

“My nerves are shot.”

The two drivers involved in last weekend’s fatal accident are yet to return to work and Mr Parslow says the men would be suffering emotionally – with grief, sleeplessness and nightmares.

“It affects your life – it affects your family life; it affects your work life,” he says.

But he commends a Pacific National move to implement a trauma response unit, which would help drivers immediately after an accident.

Mr Parslow says he loves his job, but another serious accident would make him consider giving up his 32-year career.”If I have another big one again, that’s it. I’m finished,” he says.

He says despite Government advertising campaigns calling for the public to stay alert around railway lines, too many people – drivers, cyclists and pedestrians – flirt with danger.

“People are still in too much of a hurry and taking too many risks,” he says.

“Drivers are still going across crossings when it’s dangerous; even when the gates are down – they just go around.”

via AdelaideNow

A man, 35, and a woman, 23, died last August when their utility failed to stop as a freight train neared the crossing at Bumbunga, on the Lochiel-Blyth Road, about 130 kilometres north of Adelaide.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau says toxicology tests on the victims showed high levels of methamphetamine and ecstasy.

The report said the train driver had done all he could to warn the car’s driver before the collision.

The utility was torn in half and one of the victims was dragged nearly one kilometre down the track as the train came to a stop.

via ABC News

The boy was killed on Saturday afternoon on a country railway crossing at Nantawarra, about 115 kilometres north of Adelaide.

Police say the boy had wandered from his home a short distance from the crossing and the train driver was unable to avoid hitting him.

Sergeant Jim Tappin says the boy’s father and uncle made the discovery after the northbound train stopped suddenly.

“It’s just a tragic accident – the parents were looking for him at the time,” he said.

“The kids were playing and when they went looking for him for lunch they could not find him.

“The family obviously are extremely upset as is everyone else that’s been here today.”

via ABC News

They say he was hit by a train at about 1:00am ACDT.

Police think he was asleep on the track.

They are not treating his death as suspicious.

ABC News