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Re: TGV and French Bicycle Race Near Tragedy
Author: Max Wyss
Date: 04-13-2015 - 01:16
I attach my answer here, but it comments on other messages too…
The race is one of the "Classiques", a race which has been around for many years, and has been taking the same route for many years. The Classiques are kind of warm up races before the Tours (Tour de France, Tour de Suisse, Giro d'Italia etc.). That said, the racers are all professionals, and not hobbyist wannabes. When these people do dangerous stuff, they do that in a race, but not "in private".
One part of the Classiques is that there are level crossings, and that they may be closed for trains. This is no "lack of coordination" between the organizers of the race and the SNCF. When the gates are down, the gates are down. When it comes to secure the roads of such a race (my experience is with the Tour de France), the roads are blocked at least one hour (for the TdF 3 to 4 hours) before the first racers are scheduled to pass. Now, with that Classique, it looks to me as if it were close to the end (because around Paris, there are no TGVs on the regular network), the racers may easily be 20 minutes ahead or behind of the schedule.
Now by looking at the video, the most exposed to danger person was not a racer, but the Gendarme on his motorbike. And, we see that in decent time before the train passes, he definitely stops the racers from crossing. Now, the really dangerous part was after the train passed, when some racers started crossing before the gates raised.
As noted, this was not a high speed line, but a regular line; I don't know where exactly it was, but the section of the line may not even have been very fast.
The race is one of the "Classiques", a race which has been around for many years, and has been taking the same route for many years. The Classiques are kind of warm up races before the Tours (Tour de France, Tour de Suisse, Giro d'Italia etc.). That said, the racers are all professionals, and not hobbyist wannabes. When these people do dangerous stuff, they do that in a race, but not "in private".
One part of the Classiques is that there are level crossings, and that they may be closed for trains. This is no "lack of coordination" between the organizers of the race and the SNCF. When the gates are down, the gates are down. When it comes to secure the roads of such a race (my experience is with the Tour de France), the roads are blocked at least one hour (for the TdF 3 to 4 hours) before the first racers are scheduled to pass. Now, with that Classique, it looks to me as if it were close to the end (because around Paris, there are no TGVs on the regular network), the racers may easily be 20 minutes ahead or behind of the schedule.
Now by looking at the video, the most exposed to danger person was not a racer, but the Gendarme on his motorbike. And, we see that in decent time before the train passes, he definitely stops the racers from crossing. Now, the really dangerous part was after the train passed, when some racers started crossing before the gates raised.
As noted, this was not a high speed line, but a regular line; I don't know where exactly it was, but the section of the line may not even have been very fast.
