The woman killed when her car was hit by a train in Paarl on Monday was Sorette Fourie, an executive assistant at Santé Winelands Hotel and Wellness Centre, the hotel said.
Fourie was on her way to work when the accident occurred on Simonsvlei Road just before 8am.
Chief executive officer Carlos Vilela said he had been trying to convince authorities to upgrade the road before he took over the hotel, because he believed the untarred road and the crossing were "very dangerous".
"If only the government put a boom or a warning light or something at this crossing, maybe a precious life could've been saved, but now I have to bury a single mother of two because there was no proper road safety in place," Vilela said in a statement.
"How many more people have to die on this railway line before something is done, I have over 100 staff members who have to use that road every day, what must I tell them?"
Hotel management "vowed" not to let Fourie's death become another statistic.
"Our staff will not rest until someone gives us a proper answer on what will be done to make this road safer, we are prepared to visit the authorities' offices everyday and remind them of who Sorette Fourie was."
Western Cape transport MEC Robin Carlisle said in a statement earlier on Monday that Fourie might have ignored all the warning signs prior to the accident.
"It is extremely disappointing that some motorists continue to take risks by attempting to outrun trains when approaching level crossings," Carlisle said.
"People need to realise that there is no way they can outpace a train approaching a level crossing. They need to be patient to let the train pass and not take risks that put their lives and those of train passengers in danger."
He said the provincial government was working on plans to eradicate level crossing accidents. However, little purpose would be served unless motorists changed their attitude.
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While anybody's death is disturbing, this is going a bit far, blaming the authorities.
The crossing has a warning sign AND a huge 'stop' sign on the approach.
And it comes two months after a local idiot transporting kids to school drove the van full of kids over the crossing, and killed most of them... he'd driven PAST three or four stopped cars, and round the barrier (which only covers the one side of the road)
My god, I always take extreme care when crossing rail tracks - common sense, really.
But now the finger pointing starts...
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I think it always takes time after a death of someone you know well, to accept that they may have been to blame.
It comes as a slow realisation that you really don't want to accept and the answer to this, is to try and blame someone or something else.
I do agree with you Ian but can perhaps see why it's happening.
Pat
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It happens everwhere there are roads crossing railways, Ian... and its usually the locals who are the ones that get hurt or killed... I reckon that its the old bugbear of "familiarity" - they become so used to the crossing that they forget the dangers and take risks that they wouldn't do if they were just visiting and didn't know the area.
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It's natural selection in operation.
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It happens here too Ian. See tinyurl.com/2uzdgnv - unfortunately it's not always the idiots that are killed (see the last paragraph).
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Local idiots - Pat
