Kerang train crash

I was flicking through the SMH photos of the crash site when I found this overhead shot of how the road intersects with the rail line. The SMH obviously grabbed it from google - I found the same map here.

What strikes me about the intersection is the angle at which the highway crosses the rail line. I don't know which way the truck was approaching from, but it's possible he was travelling in such a way that the train was behind his shoulder. He wouldn't have a hope of seeing it, unless he slowed right down and stuck his head out the window at the crossing. That's the kind of thing I'd do.

Here's another link to an intersection outside Ilabo in NSW. I've been across the rail line here dozens of times during trips down to Wagga, and the thing you'll notice about is is that the road kinks as it approaches the rail line. It clearly used to cross straight over, but I guess after a prang or two, the local council bulldozed the old route and created a new one so that vehicles cross the rail line at a right angle.

It's a bugger of an intersection in some ways, as you are tonking along at 100, then have to slow right down to make the turn to cross the rail line. But I guess that is the point. If a truck was going to fast, instead of zooming across the rail line at speed, it would simply fail to make the corner and tip over before it hit the crossing.