Opinion: What has KiwiRail learned from Rail Safety Week after Hawke's Bay accident?

KiwiRail says the timing of its freight schedules are set according to its customers and won't be adjusted. Photo / NZME

It's an awful irony that a Hawke's Bay student was critically injured during Rail Safety Week.

Ahead of the annual week, KiwiRail and TrackSAFE released data that showed there had been only one accident involving a train and a vehicle in Hawke's Bay, in a year.

Statistics don't lie. But they don't tell the full story either.

Tim Van Zyl is the principal of Te Awa School, next door to Napier Boys' High School.

The student injured on Thursday morning is an NBHS student.

The morning volume of students arriving at school combined with drop-off vehicle traffic is a bad-enough safety risk.

Throw in a freight train and Van Zyl says the risk to student safety is "a constant worry''.

Te Awa principal Tim Van Zyl says student safety and the nearby rail crossing are a "constant worry". Photo / NZME

Thursday's incident has shone the spotlight on multiple safety concerns.

The student injured on Thursday was on a bike. Are there sufficient safe rail crossings for cyclists?

Given the global rejection of fossil fuels, cycling is only going to become more popular.

Are we educating cyclists sufficiently when it comes to wearing helmets, the dangers of wearing headphones or using a phone while cycling etc?

The timing of the freight train that rumbles through Napier has also been questioned.

It's a logical question - could the train reschedule to avoid the high volume of young commuters?

KiwiRail has rejected the idea.

Ten trains use the crossing every day - that's an average of a little over one every two hours and 20 minutes.

KiwiRail also points to the fact that Thursday's accident was the first of its type in at least 15 years. So it doesn't happen very often.

There are those statistics again, telling us it's not a problem.

KiwiRail is also very clear that its train schedules are "designed to meet the requirements of our freight customers''.

It seems reasonable that KiwiRail could consider that train schedules are also designed to keep customers happy and the general public safe?

Concerns raised by Van Zyl aren't backed by statistics.

But it doesn't make his concerns any less valid.

There is very little statistical data suggesting people have been killed by a tsunami in Hawke's Bay.

It doesn't stop us doing what we can to save lives and rethinking how we do things.

Rail Safety Week seems to be all about the general public being told what to do, to stay safe.

What will KiwiRail take out of what it learned in 2021's Rail Safety Week?