Altogether 12 people were killed in railway accidents in Estonia during 2014 and the main causes of accidents were carelessness on the part pedestrians and motorists and ignoring of safety requirements.
Rail accidents claim 12 lives in Estonia in 2014
23rd January 2015, 13:24
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The number of railway accidents registered during the year was 20 and they included five crashes involving a road vehicle and a train, in which five lives were lost, spokespeople for the Technical Surveillance Authority said.
In 15 cases a train hit a pedestrian, killing the pedestrian in seven and injuring the pedestrian in seven cases.
One of the accidents where a person was killed was an occupational accident.
The number of train-vehicle collisions was smaller by about 40 percent than in 2013 and almost half of the collisions took place at crossings with automated signal lights.
The number of cases where a train hit a pedestrian meanwhile was bigger by half than in 2013. The accidents mostly happened as a result of negligence, caused either by the victim's drunkenness, crossing of the track at an unauthorized location, the victim's wearing headphones, using a mobile phone or crossing the tracks on a bicycle.
While the spokespeople said that «indications of premeditated stepping in front of a train» could be observed in some cases where the victim crossed the tracks at an unauthorized location, it doesn't appear from the statistics how many of the accidents could be suicides.