Rail safety campaigner and former Black Cap Chris Cairns says a fence to stop people jumping off a rail bridge in Ngaruawahia in Waikato is an example of one way to improve safety at railway lines in this country.
The fence, costing $75,000, is to prevent people jumping into the Waikato River to swim.
KiwiRail says young people were also playing cat and mouse with the trains on the bridge.
Mr Cairns says the visual perception of a train in motion is that it appears to be moving more slowly than a car, and people must also remember the train won't stop.
In the last ten years, 178 people have died in rail accidents, including the latest incident in which a a pedestrian was killed when hit by a freight train near Rolleston, Christchurch on Friday.