THE horrid mishap between a lorry and an oncoming train on December 29 cost six lives. With hundreds of lorries loading and unloading goods inside the depot, is it too much to ask for signal lights to be functional? Though there have been conflicting reports on whether the signal lights were functional on that particular day, numerous shortcomings have been identified. With such huge traffic at the site, there are no barriers to control movement of vehicles inside the depot. Functionality of signal lights notwithstanding, this in itself gives rise to the possibility of serious accident which took place on Monday and lives lost.

The Truck and Covered Van Drivers' Union at the depot has also been demanding for some years that level crossings be installed inside the depot for safer movement of traffic. That demand along with others has fallen on deaf years of authorities. Now we may ask the question that had proper measures been installed to check the movement of trucks and lorries, couldn't the incident have been averted? Instead of piling the blame outright on driver recklessness, perhaps railway authorities would be better advised to install barriers and other structures that would ensure proper and safe movement of heavy transports in the depot. Given the series of accidents between locomotives and vehicles all over the country of late, it is high time proper measures were taken to