Level Crossing

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Here he was stuck again at the railway crossing.
These railway upgrades were causing more disruption, to the car driving flow, than he'd thought.

When the news had come that they were finally electrifying the railway network, he had thought that it was a great idea.
Urban development had pushed the suburbs out further.
The new suburbs required infrastructure, particularly, public transportation. His, previously, end of the road area, had suddenly received the development attention that it sorely needed.
However, he lived in a safe voting block for the current government. This government, content in their voters loyalty, tended to push funding to more marginal areas. Whereas, if the opposition had won, they would not have pushed funds into opposing territory.
Fortunately, the new outlying areas were marginal and this attracted development in his constituency. Albeit, the bare minimum was allocated.

He now regretted not participating in lobbying the politicians.
How did he recall the notice in the local paper?

"The rail line upgrade is necessary and welcomed. But the developers are not lifting the level crossings, which will mean huge traffic delays around the area."

The person was pleading for a town meeting to protest the development and force them to improve the line and the traffic flow.

He'd rolled his eyes and considered the person "ungrateful". Now, 6 years on, there are times during peak hour that he is stuck for 15 minutes at the rail crossing.

Not only had the train schedules increased but they increased the number of train lines that ran through the area.

Traffic stalled in this byway place to cowtow to their richer neighbours.
No more bugdets.
No motivation for the, powers that be, to improve the situation.

Stacey was in a hurry.
Time stopped for no man, and, especially, for this woman.
She had to meet this next client within the next 20 mins, finish there and get back to her sister's place to pick up the kids.
She was building up her network marketing make up business. It was awesome.
Online marketing, face to face visits, sign ups, product deliveries; growth, growth, growth.
2 years in and her turnover was hitting 5 digits. Another 6 months and she'd reach distributor level. That would mean more organising and less running around like a headless chook.

Her phone buzzed.
Looking down at her console she saw that it was from her yoga friend.
Grabbing the phone in her hand, she brought up the message.
"Hey Stace, are you coming to class tomoz? Rach."
She smiled a little. Rach was a sweetheart.
She thought of a cute reply.
"Hey Rach, -"

The railway signal chiming away as he saw the light of the train in the distance. At least this train was moving quickly and hopefully it would just be the one train coming through.

Stacey was typing away with her thumb.
Tap, tap, tsp... oopd, mis-hitting letters.

The train was very sleek. The electric ones being more silver coloured than the solid old diesel ones. This was another manufacturing project that was imported from overseas. What does an engineer do in this country anymore?

With a sickening thud, Stacey's car plowed into the back of the car at the level crossing.
The car reacted by hurtling forward, smashing the boom gate, and rolling onto the traintracks.

The train driver never had a chance to react as the train smashed into the side of vehicle.
The momentum of the car changed immediately upon impact, crumpling the drivers side like a tin car, dragged along by the train, as the 2 metal creatures tried to unsuccessfully merge.

The airbag gave Stacey a broken nose and facial bruising. Small fractures were experienced in her right wrist and she had severe whiplash.
She had awoken at the hospital and would make a physical recovery.
She was quite traumatised and her head was spinning in the realisation that she was responsible for killing a person.

Distracted by her texting, she had not stopped at the level crossing, her impact pushed the other vehicle into the path of the incoming train.

The uproar in the community was enough to find the money to remove the level crossing and have the train pass underground.

A life lost, a lesson learned, and a impediment removed.

Life moves on.
Our simple decisions are like a breeze making paths in the dust.