Lodown, the problem with your example (or any similar examples) is that the ute in question would simply drive through the gates and knock them down. Also, wouldn’t the ute just pull up beside one of those large buses in a country town – for these have a lot more passengers in them than many turbo-props.
I think you will find that the people making the decisions were simply reacting to politicians saying, “We must look as if we are doing something.” Hopefully we are now past that. Let’s hope more rational minds can start allocating the resources to where the risk is greatest.