Great Western Coffee Shop

before the summer holidays start?

Just a thought.

Err - have you a link to give us context?

In searching I came across this shocker (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12405683/Horrifying-moment-two-people-shocked-accidentally-touching-electric-rail-trying-selfie-sitting-train-tracks-Chicago.html) from Chicago.

Level Crossing warnings ARE out there - quite frequently.  Whether there are enough, whether they are effective, ....

Was watching all of the news channels BBC Sky and GB news on Monday 14 August,

all three channels were showing the same film footage of persons doing press ups,taking pictures of children and dogs on the footpath crossings etc.

OK - here's a link - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-66498265

Here’s another. Never gets old: https://youtu.be/IJNR2EpS0jw

Various organisations issue "warnings to children and parents" in summer-time with school holidays in mind. (I used to produce localised press releases for HM Agricultural Inspectorate about dangers on farms.) I guess that they have to be staggered, rather than being distributed at the same time.)

The NR teams that deal with this are acutely aware of when they need to place publicity.  They would have had a campaign at schools leading up to the school holidays the timing of the recent media campaign may be targeted at parents as the "kids boredom" of being at home kicks in

I find it quietly odd that the teams concerned are always considered to be not as informed/clever etc as members here.

Chances are that their experience almost always trumps our members as they do this for a living, and therefore are far more aware, and thus know exactly what they are doing!

Indeed ... though thoughtful public ideas and views can be a useful check feed of data for those teams.

I can think of quite a few cases where professionals have made mistakes that soon became apparent to members of the public, such as Virgin Train's Club Class and FGW's "First" branding in Standard Class carriages.

Then there was the mispositioning of mini-roundabouts in Tilehurst some years ago (some had to be moved a few yards) and, close to my house a couple of weeks ago, the recent 20mph signs that lit up in a 30mph zone. After several days of drivers' confusion they were removed.

Not quite the same results though, eh? Like deaths on the rails?

And that's why it's so important that BOTH are right - both the experts, and for them to hear the none-expert voices that ask "have you done xxx"

They are not life-or-death situations either, so I was reluctant to quote my own examples earlier for fear of trivialising, but actually I like challenges that ask "why do you", "why does" or "could you" from people concerned because they let me think and they often give me a hook onto which to hang answers and to clarify my own thoughts too.

The words with those pictures say that covert cameras were placed at a number of crossings in Worcestershire. Filling in the rest of the story, this would have been earlier this year, and the crossings appear to all be foot crossings (most scary pictures we see are from fixed cameras at road crossings). I guess NR have been seeing examples of idiocy posted in social media, and thought they should find out what's really going on - in part are those posts in any way staged or faked, or is it real-life idiocy?

The timing of the publicity campaign is then when NR have enough pictures. They say they will now be going to these "problem crossings" with leaflets, optimism, and I'm not sure what else.