Railway crossing horror relived

Chris Cairns, left with Nicole Vreugdenhil, whose mother was killed in a rail crossing accident at the launch Rail Safety Week, Bluff. Photo / NZPA

Nicole Vreugdenhil didn't know how quickly her life was about to change as the car she was in approached a Southland rail crossing eight years ago.

The rail line near Bluff had been an uneventful daily crossing for Ms Vreugdenhil, now 21, until December 15, 2002, when the car she was in with her mother and younger sister collided with a train.

Her mother was killed, she received serious head injuries, and her sister suffered minor injuries.

Ms Vreugdenhil, a Christchurch Polytechnic student, has now been telling her story at schools, trying to raise awareness of rail safety as part of a paper.

Today, she joined forces with former New Zealand international test cricketer Chris Cairns to launch Rail Safety Week. Cairns lost his 19-year-old sister Louise in a 1993 level crossing accident that also claimed the lives of two other young women.

It had been hard without her mother, Ms Vreugdenhil said.

"If we would have waited one more second it might have saved my mum. One second had this catastrophic effect, and it affects the wider community."

She can't remember the accident due to memory loss, but said a report found fog had hindered her mother's vision.

"She stopped slightly, but I don't know why she kept going after that, nobody knows," she said.

Her mother was one of 55 people killed at a level crossing in the last decade, while another 97 have died after trespassing on train tracks.

There have been 271 road level crossing collisions since 2000. While the number fell in 2006 and 2008, they have risen in the last two years.

Seventeen vehicle-train collisions and two cases of train versus pedestrian have resulted in five deaths this year.

Cairns, who launched the Chris Cairns Foundation in 2006 to raise awareness of rail safety, said zero incidents was his goal.

KiwiRail chief executive Jim Quinn said the number of incidents was disturbing, and they were happening despite an average of eight level crossing upgrades a year over the past five years.

A third incidents from 2009 have been at sites protected by barriers, or flashing lights and bells.

Cairns also launched an initiative "Call it in," which will have locomotive engineers reporting on any near misses between vehicles and trains - there have been 17 since it began this month.

"We have the police on board with following through with the prosecution side of things, so that people know if they do transgress on the rail network there will be consequences."

The aim was to identify "hot spots" and potentially get more funding for barriers and CCTV cameras, he said.

Associate Transport Minister Nathan Guy said the government contributed up to $1 million per year to upgrade level crossings with warning lights, bells, and half-arm barriers.

- NZPA