railroad – Page 5 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Level crossings and safety management

Regular readers will know that SafetyAWorkBlog believes that there is little justification for road/rail crossings, particularly in metropolitan areas, and that grade separation should be the aim of any crossing upgrades. Too often governments dismiss grade separation without serious consideration because it is usually the most expensive control option. Regardless of expense, elimination of hazards must be considered in public safety policy and OHS. It is only after the elimination of a hazard is seriously considered that lower order control measures are seen to be valid.

At the moment in Victoria, there is community outrage because the truck driver involved in the deaths of 11 train passengers at a level crossing at Kerang has been cleared of any legal responsibility for the deaths. Several relatives of victims are pursuing civil action against the driver, Mr Christiaan Scholl.

The wisdom of civil action against the driver is debatable as any potential financial “win” will come from the insurance pockets of the Transport Accident Commission and not Mr Scholl. Compensation may be gained but any hope that the action could be seen as a “penalty” is false.

The Kerang rail crossing illustrates some basic OHS issues:

Worker responsibility

The Kerang level crossing had design deficiencies that had repeatedly identified by a number of government authorities, local companies and the public. The court case heard that the crossing was known to be dangerous.

In OHS, known hazards are controlled in a number of ways. Clearly the rail and road traffic was not separated and engineering controls were not introduced at the time of the incident. The owners of the crossing (and this is debated also) determined that signage was appropriate (or even perhaps “as far as is reasonably practicable”?).

Clearly signage was not adequate but there is also the issue of driver (worker) responsibility. It was mentioned in court and repeatedly in the media that the level crossing was known to be dangerous. Why then, would drivers continue to treat the crossing as if it was not? The legal speed limits remained at 100kph, at the time of the incident. The road laws clearly state that road traffic must give way to rail traffic and yet drivers have admitted to complacency.

This is perhaps the source of a lot of the community outrage in relation to the Kerang incident. The findings in favour of the driver place all the responsibility for the incident on the inadequate design of the crossing.

Working environment

As employers have responsibility to ensure a safe and health work environment, so government has a social and legal obligation to make public areas safe. Victorian governments for decades have neglected the hazards presented by inadequately designed or controlled level crossings. Governments must take responsibility for inaction just as much as taking credit for action and infrastructure improvements.

Infrastructure spending had started to increase prior to the incident but the need was sharply illustrated through the unnecessary deaths of 11 rail passengers. Many Australian governments are spending millions of dollars on rail/road crossing upgrades as a result of the Kerang incident.

Road Safety and OHS

Many OHS professionals illustrate OHS by drawing on road safety. The correlation is very poor but the attempt is understandable – most people drive, they drive within strict laws that were learnt in training (induction), and the road laws are enforced by an external body (police = WorkSafe. However, this relationship has no corresponding role for employers, who have a workplace responsibility. The road user has a direct relationship with the regulator. In OHS the role of the employer is crucial.

Perhaps the Kerang incident and other level crossing incidents could be used in brainstorming to illustrate personal accountability, employer accountability and government responsibility. It would be a worthwhile exercise to discuss whether road safety and workplace safety could share as many educative elements as some of the advocates suggest.

As with most posts on SafetyAtWorkBlog, these thoughts are a work-in-progress and debate and commentary are welcome.

Kevin Jones

Note: SafetyAtWorkBlog is not privy to any of the court evidence and must rely on media reports. More information will be presented when available.

Death of a safety leader

Last weekend Dr Eric Wigglesworth passed away after a long illness. Eric was a strong advocate for safety education and research over decades in Australia. I heard Eric speak several times in my professional career and remember being taught about his incident theories at university.

Over the last few years his profile has increased in the public sphere as he was the (only) Australian expert on the issues related to level crossing incidents.

According to a media statement issued on behalf of the Safety Institute of Australia, in which Eric was an Honorary Fellow,

“Throughout the last 60 years, Eric has been at the fore of strategic thinking in applied accident prevention. While he had many, many interests, his work on railway level crossing accidents was his passion throughout much of his professional life. Reading the recent Victorian Government Report into level crossing accidents, you could be forgiven for thinking Eric was the only one to have input to the inquiry, given how often his opinions and ideas are quoted. It is yet another testament to how highly he was respected,” according to Dr Geoff Dell, Dean of the Safety Institute of Australia College of Fellows.

“Doubtless, the strongest tenet of his career was his often-voiced belief in the need for applied, researcher-driven safety research to underpin decision-making by industry and government, and to provide the basis for effective safety education.”

I have often been critical of Australia not having a safety figurehead. Eric was the closest to such a position in academia. Now Australia needs someone to take up the role and provide it with a public face.

Let’s hope that safety professionals don’t forget the pioneers of their discipline.

Kevin Jones

FUNERAL UPDATE

Eric’s funeral will be held on 27 march 2009 at the Monash University Religious Centre, Clayton Campus, at 10.00am.

Video of Level Crossing Survivor

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has shown a remarkable video of a Turkish man who was involved in a level crossing incident and survived.

Initially it is difficult to identify the man from the aerial perspective but the side view shows clearly how lucky the man is.

It is not the policy of SafetyAtWorkBlog to show gratuitous videos with no point. That is a role, it seems, for the internet generally. However this video has instructional uses beyond the “gosh” factor.

It is worth looking at the video and considering the following issues

Rail location
Visibility of truck driver
Isolation of pedestrians from rail and vehicular traffic
Signage

There are many other issues that could be pertinent but are not identified in the video, such as administrative policies, compliance, even behavioural safety.

In this instance it is highly unlikely that the worker complementing the hard hat with a high visibility vest would have made much difference to the outcome. But then an unfastened vest may have presented its own non-visibility hazard as a catch point for the wheel structure of the truck as it passed over him.

Please note that it is his survival which makes this video of interest but there are clear safety improvements to be made.

Political argy-bargy on level crossing safety

Earlier this week Queensland MP Tim Nicholls, of the Liberal-National coalition gave the Queensland Transport Minister, John Mickel, a serve over the $10 million program on level crossing safety by calling the response “window dressing”.

Nicholls seems more interested in political point-scoring than safety but he asks

“What has happened to all their much vaunted safety studies over the last decade. It’s about time this Government came clean and explained whether it would actually commit new funding, what ongoing rail safety programs, if any, it has and whether today’s announcement will mean money is redirected from other maintenance and safety programs.”

He points out that

“Railway level safety was included in the National Road Safety Action Plan in 2003 and the Australian Transport Council has previously described railway level crossing crashes as ‘one of the most serious safety issues faced by the rail system in Australia'”

Today, Shadow Transport Minister Fiona Simpson got the focus back to safety for political procrastination and funding arguments describing the Queensland Government’s staunch defence of its “risk model” for determining upgrades was “dangerous“.

The Transport Minister has responded with political bluster but within John Mickel’s bluster is some points worth noting.

“For example, she [Fiona Simpson] might want to familiarise herself with the research which shows that the overwhelming number of level crossing accidents are caused by road driver behaviour, and how more than half of the accidents happen at crossings where there are boom gates or flashing lights.”

Mickel goes on to say

“Under this [uniform national assessment] process a review of level crossing characteristics such as topography and visibility takes place, which is then combined with the volume of road and rail traffic. The assessed level of risk is then used to prioritise any work that needs to be done.

The approach developed by Queensland forms the basis of what is known as ALCAM – the Australian Level Crossing Assessment Model – which has now been accepted by all state Transport Ministers as the method to be used to evaluate railway level crossings across Australia.”

ALCAM is receiving a great deal of attention through the Victorian Parliamentary investigation into level crossing safety.

The need for uniform assessment processes is worthy but decisions on upgrading government infrastructure always considers the political imperatives, some would just, just as strongly as independent scientific advice.

Over decades workplace safety has developed assessment processes based on a range of techniques from plain observation to QRA, FEMA and many others. Only recently has OHS got to the point of realising that greater and longer-lasting safety can be achieved through designing workplaces safely from the beginning rather than trying to achieve safety through retrofitting. Recently in Australia, there is a growing movement to apply safety case techniques to workplaces that are not high-risk organisations.

Level crossing incidents, as do workplace fatalities, indicate that there was something not right with the initial design or that necessary safety improvements were permitted to lag behind the status and technology of the users of the facilities. The fact remains that there are too many unsafe level crossings in Australia and each fatality is generating a reactionary government response rather than instigating true leadership.

Different political approaches to level crossing safety

In the Melanie Griffiths movie, Working Girl, her character gained inspiration by linking an article in the social pages of a newspaper with a business article in the paper, much to Sigourney Weaver’s professional embarrassment. This week SafetyAtWorkBlog received a similar confluence of information.

Following a fatal level crossing collision in Queensland between a passenger train and a garbage truck, the latest in several crossing incidents, the Queensland Transport Minister, John Mickel, issued a media statement outlining his plans.

QR [Queensland Rail – a government-owned rail company] will target priority level crossings in North Queensland with $10 million approved today to start work immediately on implementing improvements identified by a joint QR Task Force involving train drivers and rail unions.
QR will also step up its community education and public awareness campaigns about the need for motorists to be vigilant when using level crossings.
Transport Minister John Mickel said the urgent funding allocation and expanded community education campaigns would put greater focus on the on-going issue of level crossing safety.

A similar type of announcement was made over 12 months ago by the Victorian Transport Lynne Kosky. In The Age on 6 January 2009, an article reported that the government has agreed to provide the roads authority with a $700,000 grant to paint

“new yellow markings at more than 50 intersections around the city.”

Connex [a private rail company whose contract is up for renewal] has reported a big increase in near misses at level crossings in 2008 at the same time it

“demanded the Government prevent cars queueing dangerously on roads at rail crossings after drivers and other Government agencies reported the rising problem.”

The yellow markings are to “indicate cars must not stop there”.

Apparently the government believes that drivers who push through traffic and get stuck on a clearly signposted level crossing are more likely to change their behaviour because there are now yellow lines painted on the road. The hierarchy of controls is not big in government policy thinking.

The New South Wales government (the State between Queensland and Victoria) instigated a program of grade separation in the 1930’s almost eliminating the problem of collisions. This required a vision of the future that is no different from the current circumstances – more people, more vehicles, more demand for public transport. That government chose to plan for the long-term benefit of the community that live beyond the next election cycles.

Let’s hope that the Queensland government looks for sensible safety planning from the State next door and not the one down South.

Kevin Jones

The following links on Victorian rail crossing incidents can be used as a starting point for a greater understanding of the safety and political issues:

St Albans

Ambulance Officer

Kerang

Kerang Investigation Report

Deaths in isolated work camp from tropical storm

It is relatively easy to manage a workplace in an urban environment. The buildings stay in one place, the neighbours are almost always the same and the weather bureau provides plenty of warnings. But in isolated areas, particularly in Australia, it seems the work environment is often more exposed. Certainly this was the case in mid-March 2007 when Cyclone George hit a railway construction camp killing several workers and injuring twenty.

The camp accommodation of demountable units, called dongas, were supposedly cyclone-proof. At the time, the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union said that administrative staff were evacuated but construction workers were directed to the dongas.

The owner of the worksite, Fortescue Metals Groups said on 11 December 2008 that it will fight 40 charges brought by Worksafe WA under the West Australian Occupational Health and Safety Act.

According to one media report:

“The charges include the failure to provide a safe work environment, failure to design and construct temporary accommodation and other buildings capable of withstanding a cyclone and failure to properly instruct and train workers.”

The installer of the demountable buildings, Sunbrood, had all charges dismissed.

The court case will continue in Western Australia in February and March next year.

Beware the OHS hype on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

World COPD day was held on 17 November 2008. COPD Stands for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. As with many of these health-related days there is more hyperbole than substance and often the most relevant information appears after the hype has died down. This is the case with a report just released by the Occupational And Environmental Medicine. [[Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease mortality in railroad workers Online First Occup Environ Med 2008; doi 10.1136/oem/2008.040493]]

According to a media statement that accompanied the report:

They wanted to gauge the long term effects of diesel exhaust on the risks of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), an umbrella term for progressive lung diseases, such as emphysema and bronchitis.

In 1946, just 10% of rolling stock was diesel powered; by 1959, virtually all rolling stock was.

The researchers checked the health records of the US Railroad Retirement Board, which has maintained digital records of all its employees since 1959, including a yearly listing of all job codes and time spent in post.

Anyone working on the trains (conductors, engineers, brakemen) was considered to have been exposed to diesel exhaust.

Those working in ticketing, signalling, maintenance, admin, and as station masters, were regarded as not having been exposed.

The results showed that those who had been exposed to diesel exhaust were more likely to die of COPD than their peers who had not been so exposed.

The risks increased by 2.5% with each year of employment among those who were recruited after conversion from steam to diesel locomotives.

This risk fell only slightly after adjusting for smoking, a known risk factor for COPD.

Of all the reports that were released in the last two weeks, this one is the clincher because it shows that smoking did not have an appreciable effect on the health findings. There is a direct relationship between a work activity in a work environment and worker health.

This correlation is sadly lacking from other COPD data which reads primarily as a new spin on anti-smoking campaigns.

According to the International COPD Coalition (“a nonprofit organization composed of COPD patient organizations around the world, working together to improve the health and access to care of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease”)

World COPD Day 2008 features new patient and health professional initiatives that address the misconceptions and lack of awareness surrounding chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). These misconceptions – revealed in a global survey, the International COPD Coalition (ICC) Report – include poor public awareness that smoking is the main cause of COPD, a failure to diagnosis COPD in its early stages, when medication can be used to prevent further lung deterioration, and a mistaken belief that initial COPD symptoms, like coughing and shortness of breath, are a normal consequence of aging.

We may be unaware smoking leds to COPD but we are well aware that smoking can kill you. Whether it is emphysema, lung cancer, heart disease or COPD doesn’t change the fact that smoking increases the risk of premature death. It is insulting that a “World Anti-Smoking Day” needs to masquerade under a new health risk.

For those workers who have suffered work-related respiratory problems the Queensland governmenthave released a very good guide for those who have breathing difficutlies or for those who look after them – the Better Living With COPD – A Patient Guide (pictured below)

Category: railroad

Level crossings and safety management

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Death of a safety leader

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Video of Level Crossing Survivor

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Political argy-bargy on level crossing safety

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Different political approaches to level crossing safety

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Deaths in isolated work camp from tropical storm

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Beware the OHS hype on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

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