It's Not Worth The Risk

Sometimes a commercial just really gets to you...

Last month was Railway Crossing Safety Awareness month here in Victoria. The following add encouraged us not to race through railway crossings as the safety gaurds come down.





Well, today I saw railway crossing safety reach a new level. It's not a long walk from the train platform to the footpath where I can cross the tracks, but lets say it takes about a minute to reach from when I get off the train. And by this time, the train is long gone and the crossing gaurds are up, indicating that it is now safe for cars to continue along their way.

I came home during peak hour today, and when I crossed over the tracks I noticed that there was quite a lot of cars backed up along what is normally a busy but not backed up road. Since all the cars on my side of the road were grid locked, I walked through them into the middle of the road, looked to see if any more cars were coming, and suddenly realized something:

On both sides of the road, the front cars stopped at the railway crossing had remained stopped well after the train had left the station. What was even more bizzare was the fact that no one was honking at them to move it along. In fact, it wasn't until myself and another pedestrian crossed the road doing double takes of this bizarre traffic situation that the other drivers started to notice something was wrong and got on their horns.

Some things are worth waiting for indeed!