The police have urged people to unglue themselves from their phone screens when they're near a tram. The plea comes as the number of clashes between a person and a light-rail train reaches 25.
"We've all seen it. Everyone's got their head down, they're in their screens, adults, children, everyone," Heather Donnellan, the ACT Policing officer in charge of Gungahlin police station, said.
She was speaking at the launch of a campaign for better safety on the tram system. As part of the campaign, local schools were asked to design safety posters which will be used.
One of the winning designs had the slogan "Screens Distract", depicting a cracked tram windscreen. The designer, 17-year-old Manogna Thobula of Burgmann Anglican School, said: "I see everyone glued to their screens, even children, young children. And I just think it's dangerous, especially in public spaces like light rail.
"It's a big issue because it causes distraction, and we don't realise the harm, but distraction is one of the main causes of accidents around light rail in Canberra."
The new safety campaign featured a video of startling near misses. Cars tried to beat a tram across a junction. Pedestrians were oblivious. A man on a skateboard lost control, with the board skidding into the path of the tram.
"The video shows plenty of cars turning in front of the light rail vehicles, lots of near misses," Transport Minister Tara Cheyne said.
The video had a "shock factor", she said, but "the aim for me and for this government is to not have to put those videos out to remind people".
The minister said there had been 25 collisions between trams and people or vehicles since the system began operations in 2019. That works out at one every three or four months.
In Melbourne, such clashes average about two a day but the network there is many times larger than the single-line Canberra system.
Ms Cheyne thought contacts between people and trams in Canberra were "rare". "It's just two this year," she said, but adding: "there are thousands of people using light rail every day and using light rail safely. And their experience is 100 per cent a good one.
"But one incident can have life-changing consequences, and that's why these messages are so important."
In contacts between tram and human, the person invariably came off worst, and in one of the 25 cases, fatally.
Last week, a tram and a pedestrian clashed on Northbourne Avenue near the netball courts.
In September last year, a 49-year-old man died after being hit by a tram. The accident happened at the intersection of Northbourne Avenue and Barton Highway.
He was treated at the scene before being transported to hospital with life-threatening injuries. He was declared dead shortly after.
