then hey, we all make mistakes. do you ever make mistakes, Ocksen?

Of course I do, but here’s the difference – in my professional life I try my damnedest not to make any, because I am held extremely accountable for any errors I make. Worse case, people (or me) could die. Apart from that, I take pride in my work and accept that people might judge me for what I produce. Thus it irks me when so called professionals in other lines of business (and here I am looking at you media) can be so blasé in their attitude to the output of sloppy, inaccurate, sensationalised, and opinionated ‘work’ and simply dismiss it because ‘we all make mistakes’. Reporters are paid to provide the news. It should be factual and accurate but now I am being naive.

where you refer to “hysteria” whipped up over death trap level crossings. i’m sure people who have lost loved ones at rail level crossings, would not think of coverage as hysteria. anything to prevent another life lost is worthwhile, surely.

You’re sure are you? As someone who was closely associated with the two blokes that were killed in the tilt train crash at Rungoo, I was angered by the media response, as were their colleagues, as predictable as it was. But hysteria is right, because as sure as someone falling from a boat will land in shark infested waters, the focus on a level crossing incident will be whether or not the crossing had flashing lights or boom gates. And I note that in this case, that even though the crossing had flashing lights, it was reported otherwise, no doubt hysteria bait. The hysteria starts with an uninformed press screaming for ’safer’ level crossings, with the cry being taken up the road transport lobby to deflect blame from their incompetent drivers. Note how there is no call to be safer at level crossings? It’s more fun to blame the railways or Government rather than place the onus of safety on the public. I don’t disagree that there needs to be an overall improvement in level crossing safety, but it needs a balanced and realistic approach to get the right outcome. So it is unhelpful when everyone starting with the meedya start implicating the railways with their unsafe level crossings where facts, analysis and statistics will prove that 98% of incidents are caused by the dangerous road users. Of course reporting this does not sell papers. The controls to safely navigate the crossings (and therefore prevent loss of life) are already there – road users must remember to obey them, and therefore education comes into the equation.

i personally found the story abt sugar spilled all over the road, interesting.

Sure, and so it was. My beef was in the accuracy of it.

oh, and the story online has been changed

Measure twice, cut once.

Hi Tricia,

No probs, all taken in the way it was intended. Oh, I am not in the emergency services – nothing so honourable or glamorous as that!

Perhaps you are correct when you say that journos do not intentionally or deliberately publish inaccurate stories when reporting an event. But this can inadvertently happen if parts of the story are not validated, or if certain facts or aspects of the story are not included, or indeed, placed in the story out of sequence. But this is drifting away from the topic.

Agree, physical barriers are helpful, but unfortunately not fool proof. Full separation is the answer, but prohibitively expensive. So it ends up a balance to suit the circumstance in an affordable way. But you need to ask why, because lets face it, road intersections are not protected by physical barriers.

I have no control over the theme as I am but a mere contributor to this site. But if I knew how, I’d be delighted to whip up a theme for Mr. Turp.

And about this Horsen Buggy handle…. seems to be running very close to plagiarising a user name theme eh? Might have have a chat to my brother Dhunney about this.