A new free downloadable sat nav application has been developed to alert motorists when approaching train level crossings and improve road safety, announced Network Rail.

The owner and operator of most of the rail infrastructure in Great Britain has worked together with satellite navigation provider Garmin to create the technology, which can be downloaded onto Garmin nuvi or nuLink sat navs at no cost from their website.

The alert would work similarly to options that warn drivers to approaching speed cameras. In the event of driving towards a level crossing the device would whistle like a train and an X would show on the screen with the name of the crossing.

The two companies are also working on an intelligent development of the version where motorists could choose to set a journey avoiding level crossings altogether. Another project is set to make the sat nav alter the route to avoid a level crossing where the barriers are down for a long period of time if the alternative was faster.

"Sat nav technology has proved to be a great help to motorists in alerting them to what's ahead on the road, so developing an app around level crossings seemed a smart idea and we hope it will be a useful aid to motorists as the roads and the railway get even busier," said Dyan Crowther, Network Rail director of operational service.

According to the Network Rail there has been an increasing number of drivers taking illegal and dangerous risk at level crossings, with a number of near misses with trains, 161 last year - a jump of 15% from the 140 registered in 2009.

Although the number of imprudence's is up, actual collisions between trains and vehicles fell from 14 in 2009 to seven last year, and deaths from 13 to four over the same time period.

According to Edmund King, Automobile Association president: "Drivers are playing Russian Roulette with their own lives and the lives of others by ignoring crossing warning signs."

Also from the AA, in its provider of driver training DriveTech, David Richards reminds us that "level crossings are one of the few places where one motorist's decisions can affect the safety of many, many people."