The Transportation Safety Board (JST) issued safety recommendations after five accidents have been registered at the level crossing of the Granaderos de la Línea Sarmiento, in the town of Ciudadela, where it was detected that the barrier was working poorly and the vehicles crossed without respecting it, according to the Ministry of Transport reported today.
As detailed by the JST, three of the reported accidents occurred within seven days during the month of October 2021.
“It was found that the level crossing barrier did not comply with the measures established in the SETOP 7/81 regulation since it presented a break”, they expressed from the organism.
For its part, the JST launched a survey in the area with the aim of “studying the factors that could have caused these accidents” and, based on that survey, published an Operational Safety Study.
In addition to the failures in the barriers, another of the problems found in the place was that the vehicles that circulated in the area did so, constantly, with the barrier low, exposing themselves to “risk situations and causing inconveniences in traffic when invading the opposite hand ”.
Cut off level crossing, Grenadiers, Citadel @solotransito train heading to Moreno apparently grabbed a truck pic.twitter.com/D5v3S11Hcc
– Ezequiel (@Ezethekid) January 26, 2021
They also detailed that the presence of a “sentry box” six meters from the pedestrian crossing made it difficult to see the arrival of the trains: “this situation puts the lives of people who pass the level crossing at risk on a daily basis”they warned.
The JST recommends the installation of road dividers inside the Granaderos level crossing and improving the condition of the pedestrian crossing.
In turn, “comply with the SETOP 7/81 regulation that establishes how railway barriers should be at level crossings”, they concluded.