The Big Read:On September 15, 1830, William Huskisson, the member of parliament for Liverpool, was run down and killed by George Stephenson's locomotive "Rocket" at the opening ceremony of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.

While attempting to climb back into his railway carriage, Huskisson lost his balance.

"Before he could recover he was thrown down directly in the path of the Rocket," The Observer newspaper wrote four days later. "Mrs Huskisson, who, along with several other ladies, witnessed the accident, uttered a shriek of agony, which none who heard will ever forget."

Huskisson died hours later of what today would be called "massive trauma".

The accident - the first railway death to get any real media attention - was a grim footnote in the early history of railways, but it was a warning to the thousands of people who had gathered by the tracks that day that getting in the way of a speeding train would probably be fatal.

Nearly 180 years on and the lesson has not been learned. Last year in South Africa, 27 people were killed and 77 injured in accidents at rail crossings, a spokesman for rail operator Transnet told The Times.

On Wednesday last week, a minibus full of schoolchildren was hit by a commuter train at the Buttskop level crossing on a busy commuter railway line in Blackheath, Cape Town. Ten children were killed when Jacob Humphreys, the minibus driver, allegedly overtook a line of cars waiting at the crossing for the train to pass, zigzagged around the lowered booms and into the path of the oncoming train.

Operation Lifesaver, a US non-profit organisation that works to reduce level crossing accidents, has a short and simple homily about motorists trying to beat trains over level crossings: "Never race a train to the crossing - even if it's a tie, you lose."

Consider the facts. A train travelling at 100km/h needs more than a kilometre to make an emergency stop, while an average-sized freight train travelling at 80km/h will need more than 1.5km to come to a halt. So a driver scooting across the tracks in front of an oncoming train is toying with the laws of physics - and dicing with other people's lives.

There are, according to Transnet, 8403 level crossings in South Africa, 6440 of which are on active railway lines.

There are three kinds of rail crossing. Some, such as the guarded crossing at Kenilworth in Cape Town, have barriers the width of the entire road and are manually lowered by a signalman well before a train approaches the crossing.

Others - such as the one where last week's tragedy took place - have booms which reach halfway across the road and are further protected by flashing lights and a warning bell. The booms are automatically lowered and the lights start flashing as soon as an approaching train passes over track circuits in the distance.

The third and most numerous type are unguarded "passive" crossings without booms and protected by red St Andrew's crosses and traffic warning signs, and found mostly in rural areas.

As an extra safety measure, train drivers sound the air horn or whistle as the train approaches a level crossing.

According to road safety organisation Arrive Alive, international accident statistics show that 95% of level crossing accidents were the vehicle driver's fault.

In the wake of last week's tragedy, there have been calls to eliminate rail crossings, either by closing them or replacing them with bridges.

Transnet's view is that it is the motorist's responsibility to avoid being hit by a train. "Trains can't swerve to avoid collisions," said the spokesman. "The onus is on the motorist to stop, look and listen before crossing the rail line."

Rollo Dickson, editor of South African trade journal Railways Africa, agrees. "Eliminating crossings is not the solution - you can't just replace them with a bridge," he said. The cost alone - an estimated R40-million a time - means bridges are not a viable solution.

That leaves driver education as the only way to reduce the toll. Transnet said it is working with the Railway Safety Regulator and the Road Traffic Management Corporation to educate people about the dangers of trains, and a TV and radio media campaign is to launch shortly.

Hopefully the advertisement will be as shocking as the one currently being run by UK rail operator Network Rail with its scenes of a faithful dog whining over its master's shredded body, the smoking wreck of a car upside down between the rails, and a little girl who runs around the lowered half-boom and onto the tracks. "Take a chance at a level crossing," says the voiceover, "and it's only a matter of time".

The motorists and pedestrians are not the only victims, either. "Think about that poor train driver," said Dickson. "For the rest of his life, every time he approaches a level crossing again, he is going to relive that tragedy."

At the end, the Network Rail campaign says all that needs to be said. "Level crossings. Don't run the risk."