Level crossing accidents fatalities

Australian Transport Safety Bureau (2002), Level Crossing Accidents Monograph 10. Canberra Conmionwealth Department of Transport and Regional Services. Australian Transport Safety Bureau (2003), Level Crossing Accident Fatalities. 

The highest train accident related hazardous event is HET-10, passenger train collision with road vehicle on level crossing, at 3.9 equivalent fatalities representing 1.9% of the overall risk on the mainline railway. 

In chapter three, the theoretical background to all the potential macro-factors that could contribute to road accidents was presented. The relationship between each factor and the probability that road accidents may occur on the national level was conducted. One special criterion to select suitable indicators was used. This has enabled me to determine the key macro-performance indicators in road safety. It has become clear that the chosen indicators must be easy, available, measurable, and comparable worldwide. Moreover, these indicators must be able to indicate/monitor the country s progress over time in road safety and allow international comparisons. The obtained set of indicators was listed and summarised in Table 3.2. The next step was to understand and explain the main published macroscopic studies and models that are used in describing and comparing the road safety development internationally. I have divided the reviewed models into cross-sectional models (time-independent models) and (time-dependent models). A starting point in this direction was to investigate Smeed s equation, particularly in the relation between motorisation and fatality rates. Several models for... 

The theory can be divided into two distinct types. The first is the economics of bilateral accidents. These are accidents where the probability of an accident is influenced by the level of preventive effort undertaken by both the railroad and the other party involved in the accident. The prime examples of bilateral accidents are grade-crossing collisions, trespasser fatalities, and occupational injuries. Because the highway user, trespasser, or employee can affect the probability and severity of an accident by the level of care that they take, economic and legal theory has developed to provide all parties the correct incentives so as to minimize the societal cost of accidents. The theory of bilateral accidents is described in chapter 7, and then is applied to grade crossings, trespassers and occupational safety in chapters 8, 9 and 10 respectively. 

Teale and Marks have described a case in which a fatal traffic accident was due to the behaviour of a driver who, at post-mortem, proved to have plasma levels of 315 ng/ml THC-CRC (tetrahydrocannabinol cross-reacting cannabinoids) a volunteer experiment subsequently showed that, when using the same laboratory methods, a peak THC-CRC level of only 75 ng/ml was associated with euphoria (14 ). 

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