Juridicalblog.net

In my country there’re still lots of local railway lines, which are crossed by the roads, however not protected by railway gates. Only traffic signs in front of the railway crossings warn drivers of such unprotected crossings. Local railway lines, which often run through the forests, aren’t always straight, there’re lots of bends there, thus the visibility for the drivers isn’t optimal, so engine drivers have to use a horn in front of the crossing. In spite of this, accidents between trains and cars happen, fortunately only seldom.
Here’s one case like this.
A man aged of 55 drove a lorry along the local road and came near an unprotected railway crossing, so he slowed down and finally stopped in front of the crossing and looked to the right and to the left, but he didn’t see any train, so he tried to cross the rail, but while still on the rail, he saw a train coming from the left hand side. He hadn’t seen it before, because of the trees growing along the rail. Because of the noise in his cab, he didn’t hear neither the horn of the engine, nor the noise of the train itself earlier. He tried to excape with a vehicle from the rail, but the lorry was too long. The crash between the train and the back part of the lorry happened, fortunately no passenger from the train was injured and the engine was only slightly damaged.
This accident was investigated by the policemen from the Traffic police station and by the specific investigational department of the railway company. During the investigation it was clear, that the engine driver hadn’t caused this accident. It had been exclusively caused by the man driving a lorry, because he hadn’t paid close attention to the train coming, so he was accused of the crime called The general danger.
During the investigation he pleaded quilty, his lorry had had a lawful insurance of the responsibility for damages caused in the traffic, so the damage on the engin was completely covered by the ensurance company. The crime itself wasn’t too dangerous. The perpetrator commited it by his negligence not intentionally, he had a good reputation and his criminal record had been empty. It was possible to conditionally stop his accusation by the prosecutor.
Such decision was accepted both by the perpetrator and by the railway company.

Winter finished last Sunday, but there’s still a lot of snow in my region. On the Praděd mountain, only 28 km from the town, where I work, there’s still a layer of snow 1,80 m high! When I got up on Monday, the temperature was 11 degrees Celsius below freezing! It’s surprising because I don’t live on the pole.
But this morning it was much warmer, so I’m wearing low shoes and hope, I’ll be able to hide my winter coat next week.
Winter is over and spring is welcomed.

I don’t have enough time to visit language courses, so I try to learn foreign languages all by myself.
I started learning German a few years after I had seriously started learning English. At first I thought German was much more difficult to learn than English. I wasn’t able to remember new German words, to understand German grammar and my spoken German was of a zero level. I didn’t feel any progress.
Last year I bought an educational programme on CD ROM called Sprachkurs Deutsch. It consists of 168 German lessons. I haven’t finished too many of them so far, but I have to say that I like a German grammar now. The Sprachkurs Deutsch helps me not only to understand German grammar, but to improve my vocabulary and to make my spoken German better, too.
I believe that with a continuous practice I’ll be able to speak German quite well.
That’s the reason that I have changed my former idea. Nowadays I think that German is easier to learn than English, because English seems to me as difficult as before, but German less difficult.
I’d like to know how other people, who learned both English and German sooner, look at these two languages and which of them they consider more difficult to learn and why.