The people who dodged round the barriers are seriously stupid. A TGV can travel 500 yards in five seconds, as this unfortunate cyclist discovered...
http://road.cc/content/news/114250-french-tgv-train-travels-40km-cyclists-body-embedded-front-cab
They travel fast on specially dedicated lines where there are no level crossings, they don't thunder about at high speed on lines like in the video! Just because it has a 186 MPH (300KPH), that doesn't mean it is travelling at that speed, and nor does it somehow make the train any more dangerous! In other words, the type of train doesn't matter.
The train was not travelling fast and took a while to reach the crossing. Anyone with any sort of depth perception would have seen that and clearly took a calculated risk much akin to crossing a road!
That said, I probably would have stopped, although I get the impression that due to the number in the peleton, a few of them probably only realised where they were at the last moment, by which time it was too late, or, had they stopped suddenly, they would have caused a pile up, potentially right in the path of the train.
Those last guys crossing didn't have any excuse though.
But no-one did lose their life or get injured, did they? And even if they had, they would only have themselves to blame. You don't gamble with your life when you see barriers down on a French railway line where TGV's are known to travel! If they place such little value on their lives and that of others then I for one will have no sympathy for them when it all goes wrong.
Yes, although I am afraid that I am just sick of the whole attitude these days (especially in this country in fact) that if you even step on a railway track, YOU WILL DIE!! If you stand even a millimeter on the yellow line at a station, YOU WILL DIE!! If you even think about it, YOU WILL DIE!! And so on.
Load of nonsense if you ask me.
And I will say again, the fact it was a TGV doesn't make any difference, a train is a train at the end of the day.