Christine, Wondering

Random Musings of a Human Becoming

Thursday, April 5, 2007

A small victory for common sense

A couple of weeks ago I was left fuming after the driver of the bus I was riding on decided to go against the red, flashing, jangling stop signals at a railway crossing. I was very angry that the driver thought it was okay to risk the lives of everyone on the bus just because she wanted to get out onto the main road just a little bit quicker; and I wasn’t the only person distressed, as we went over the rails I heard several other passengers gasp as they realised what the driver had done.

I sent a very strongly-worded complaint to Transperth about the incident, pointing out that a normal driver caught running against a rail crossing light would be charged with a serious driving offence, and that the whole reason for rail signals is that human judgment is not good enough, so the driver had no right to stake our safety on her personal opinion that she could get us across in time.

I requested a response in the complaint form, but after I didn’t hear back within the promised 48 hours, I gave my complaint up as lost in bureaucracy, never to be attended to. So I was very surprised today when I finally got a phone call from Transperth. They said that the driver had been spoken to and would be sent back to driver training if there were any more incidents. They also said that all drivers had been reminded of the laws about obeying railway crossing lights.

It’s not much, but it’s something. And that’s better than nothing!

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