Quote:
Originally Posted by Ravenheart
This is unbelievable
Network Rail get fines for the railway being unsafe, but you can't make it idiot proof
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-24865671
Never a thought given by people like this to save no time at all, they ruin people's lives, not only that of their own family, but possibly that of the poor driver who comes round the corner at 70mph to see her in front of them. |
You can go a long way to doing it if you have both the money and the willingness to spend it. Providing automatic gates along each platform would stop most of these people, but the cost would be prohibitive.
I saw something similar at a local station a couple of years ago. A man was waiting by the ticket office, and suddenly decided to leave the station. I was on the platform opposite the ticket office. Rather than just walk up to the ticket office and walk out through the gate next to that, he decided to jump down on the tracks, cross them and leave through the gate next to me.
Now, you could argue that neither gate was particularly well signposted (they aren't), but we were both standing a couple of feet from the footbridge, which doesn't exactly blend into the background.
However, I wonder why people do this. It doesn't save enough time to be worth bothering about. It's not that much effort to go up/down stairs, and a lot of stations do have ramps, hills or lifts now. I can only conclude it's for the thrill.