EXCLUSIVE. Fatal collision at a level crossing in Toulouse: “the driver found herself trapped”
Caught in a traffic jam, a 25-year-old young woman in a car found herself trapped between the security barriers of a level crossing east of Toulouse. A TER hit the vehicle head-on. The motorist in front of her experienced the tragedy live. He gives his testimony.
A few cyclists cross the level crossing 67 near the Auchan Gramont shopping center, chemin de Gabardie. They cast a furtive glance at the SNCF technicians who are inspecting the railway without really understanding the seriousness of the situation. A few hours earlier, shortly after 7:30 a.m. on October 14, a TER traveling between Mazamet and Toulouse hit a car stuck between the security barriers of the tracks. All over the ballast, pieces of bumpers and fragments of the damaged vehicle.
Below, in a ditch, the totally deformed carcass of the passenger compartment projected 60 meters from the point of impact. Right next to it, the inanimate body of the driver of the car. Christian does not recover from what he saw. This surveyor was on his way to work in Balma when he was caught in a traffic jam with the victim. He says: “I was right behind her. As is often the case in the morning at this time, it was quite jammed because of the entrances and exits to the military barracks and the nearby sandpit (1). Nothing to do with the current monster queues in front of gas stations because of gasoline shortages… I saw her enter the tracks. I wondered if she realized the risk. Me, I stayed behind. I honked at her and flashed her headlights to try to make her understand that she absolutely had to get out of there. I don’t know the train schedules by heart, I suspected that in 15 seconds, what happened was going to happen. »
The national police will try to determine how and why the young victim got stuck at the level crossing.
“There is too much time between the lowering of barriers
and the passage of the train”
The crossing lights begin to flash and the security barriers lower. The young woman stays in her car. Christian doesn’t make the slightest move to help her, he knows it’s too late: “She found herself trapped. Between the moment when the barriers are closed, there is too little time, barely a few seconds. I had counted six a previous time. For me, it’s impossible even for a young person like this poor lady to get out of her vehicle in time. I told myself that if it was going to explode, I absolutely had to step back to protect myself. »
Not in the list of risky level crossings
The collision is absolutely terrible. “Here (on the level crossing Editor’s note), we are about 5 kilometers from Toulouse station. The train is not decelerating. Its speed is close to 140 km/h. The driver probably saw the vehicle, but even with the alert braking, it was impossible to avoid the impact. We can see it clearly from the place where the locomotive finally stopped, ”he explains, pointing to the TER immobilized nearly 500 meters from the place of the collision. The SNCF Réseau management in charge of infrastructure (railways, level crossings, etc.) indicates that “this level crossing was not one of the high-risk level crossings listed by the State services (2 )” and ensures that “the time that elapses between the passage of the train and the safety lowering is the same regardless of the running speed of the locomotive” and “that it is well above a few seconds “.