People playing chicken with trains continues to plague the Waikato town of Ngāruawāhia.
A new video on social media shows seven children jumping from the rail bridge into the Waikato River just as a train engine barrels past them with its horn blaring.
“I think the train drivers have done everything they can to keep the area safe.”
There were projects in play to try to reduce the danger, but they faced barriers, she said.
The community board was seeking backing for a separate footpath to be built onto the bridge with a platform for jumping into the river, separating the jumpers from the train tracks: “We’re trying to get it moving”.
However, so far, the local and national agencies needed to back it had been shy of taking on any liability for such a project, she said.
And there could be challenges in enusring a platform was successfully adopted by locals instead of them sticking with the dangerous alternative, she said.
An education programme run by police, the regional council and KiwiRail had been delivered through all of the local schools. It gave children the chance to meet train drivers and police officers in person to help them understand the consequences of deaths on the bridge, and how many people in the community they affected.
The education programme had come to a halt during Covid, but Morgan hoped it would be revived in time to be run next year.
“Education is a large must. We can’t really get the older generations to change their minds, but we can start with the next generation coming through.”
Casualties at the bridge
In 2002, 9-year-old Jayden Nerihana Tepu died after being hit by a train on the Ngāruawāhia rail bridge.
In 2009, a KiwiRail spokesperson told RNZ that children playing chicken at the bridge had long been a problem as the activity was considered a rite of passage locally. An engineer was assaulted after trying to stop a group of children playing chicken there.