From the
Daily Mail:
Colour-blind driver's miracle escape as train crushes his car when he failed to spot red flashing lights at a level crossing
A colour-blind motorist failed to spot red flashing lights at a level crossing just moments before his car was pushed 30ft along a track by an oncoming train.
The Peugeot car belonging to 59-year-old furniture designer Philip Koomen was crushed and dragged along as the driver of the First Great Western train slammed on the brakes. He broke his arm in the drama.
Koomen said that he had not seen the warning lights as he drove up to the unmanned crossing, which had no barriers and which London Mayor Boris Johnson had highlighted as a safety concern as far back as 2006, when he was MP▸ for the local area.
The shaken driver was hauled from the mangled wreckage after firefighters cut off the car^s roof, driver^s door and boot to allow rescuers to clamber inside.
He was lucky to escape the horror collision with just a fractured arm and none of the 20 passengers on board the train were harmed.
On Thursday he admitted a charge of dangerous driving following the collision close to Shiplake railway station on the outskirts of Henley-on-Thames, South Oxfordshire.
The collision happened just hours after British Transport Police officers had been standing, giving safety advice to motorists as they negotiated the same crossing.
The man^s car was hit by the 18:17 Henley to Twyford service, which was travelling at about 20mph at the time of the impact.
'As he approached the level crossing the light to indicate the train was approaching was on. However Dr Koomen failed to stop and after 37 seconds of the lights flashing he had crossed the level crossing,' said Julian Lynch, prosecuting. 'At the same moment, the train was approaching from Henley-on-Thames and struck Dr Koomen^s vehicle, pulling it ten metres down the track and causing damage to the car, to the train and injuring Dr Koomen.'
It was estimated that the crash had caused more than ^80,000 pounds worth of damage and brought that stretch of the rail network to a standstill.
Some 16 trains were cancelled, four were partly cancelled and more trains were delayed with the track having to be closed for 11 hours while repair work could take place.
Bystanders said they had seen the lights flashing at the crossing as Dr Koomen^s car approached, and thought that the Peugeot 307 would stop, only to hear a loud bang as the train hit the moving vehicle.
Train driver Paul Conduit said he had slowed the train down from 50mph as he approached Shiplake station, but had not seen Koomen^s car as it had been in his blind spot.
'As I was going over the crossing I heard a big bang,' he said in a statement. 'I immediately put on my brakes. I looked out of the window and saw a silver estate car dragged ten to 15 metres.'
In his police interview Koomen, who has a PhD in design, said he had known there was a level crossing in the area and had been expecting to see signage to warn him of the hazard ahead.
He had slowed down to less than 15mph in preparation, and although he had seen a single 'pulsating' light, he did not think this was the warning light on the crossing.
Magistrates sitting in Oxford heard that he was colour bind and had difficulty differentiating between red and amber coloured lights.
'I^m looking for evidence of another light to tell me it^s a warning sign and I continued thinking "^this isn^t a crossroad - it must be further down," he told police in his statement. 'I knew it was about 100 metres to the crossroad. I didn^t know exactly where the crossroad was positioned, I^m looking for evidence that the crossroad is nearby. I^m aware there is no barrier. The next moment there is a crash and I have no awareness I have crossed into a train.'
David Bright, defending, told the court that safety concerns had been raised about the crossing as there had been several near misses in the past decade.
He said that in October 2006 Boris Johnson, then MP for Henley, had raised a question in Parliament calling for it to be made safer.
As well as a lack of safety barriers, Mr Bright said the lights could be obscured by foliage and had been tilted away from oncoming traffic - making them difficult for Koomen to identify in the dark.
'This clearly does not provide a problem for local residents, but for a stranger approaching the crossing from the side Dr Koomen was approaching is hazardous,' he said. He added: 'An angled light appeared to be a pulsating light. He was mistaken. As the court will know, the law is clear: making a mistake is not a defence and he has pleaded guilty.'
Mr Bright said that since Koomen^s crash on November 17, last year, safety barriers had been installed at the crossing.
Presiding magistrate Claire McGlashan said that grey-haried Koomen, of Abingdon in Oxfordshire, had been lucky not to have been killed in the crash.
'You caused major disruption to passenger services for about 12 hours and extensive damage,' she said to bespectacled Koomen, who stood solemnly in the dock, smartly dressed in a shirt and tie. However, no-one else was injured and your action was not deliberate.'
She told Koomen that he would have to pay a ^1,500 pounds fine, as well as ^775 pounds in court costs and a ^15 pounds victim surcharge within the next week.
He was also banned from driving for a year and told that he would have to sit an extended test before being allowed a new licence.
