We are a group of young people campaigning for safer train track crossings in the Weston and North Somerset area.
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Weston is unsafe.
That simple route home, that you've crossed hundreds of times, felt like a good idea at the time but now shows no mercy nor emergency breaks. It cuts through your life, through your community in less than a heartbeat.
That's what we've felt, as the young people of Weston-super-Mare, when our friend, Evie Wright was killed by a fast-approaching train at the Corondale road level crossing on the 6th March 2018.
It shattered our community, it broke our hearts, and we were meant to just "deal with it"? Hours of counselling sessions, days of grievance, weeks of sleepless nights, trying to grip the surreal truth that our friend died, when it could have easily been prevented.
Our friend, who would cheer us all up and light up the classroom, that would always have a smile across her face, it was our friend that was no longer there.
It took months to overcome the fact that this incident is just one of many, one in 257 to be precise that year. This could've been any one of us.
These crossings are a necessity for some people going to and from school, work, shops and visiting family and friends, used by so many and so often until someone makes one mistake, that costs them their life. As all they got was a dark alleyway, flimsy dysfunctional gates, and a three-word sign that has such little impact that it isn't even lit up. Trains tracks that begin to curve in the distance and it is impossible to see in the evening.
This is wrong.
Schoolchildren cross here, wheelchair users cross here, teenagers cross here. Grandmas and grandpas, mums and dads, cousins and aunts, friends and lovers, a stranger and you. All victim to this lack of basic safety.
We DEMANDED safer crossings.
We have succeeded.
Thank you for supporting The Movement, thank you for taking Action with us, thank you for doing your part for the community.
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