Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Grade-Crossing Accidents
This is without doubt the single biggest safety problem facing
America's railroads. On city streets, main highways, and dirt
roads, cars cross over train tracks at thousands of locations from
one end of the country to the other, and every site is a potential
tragedy. Motor vehicles of all kinds are hit by trains with a fre-
quency that is astounding—several times a day, every day. The
circumstances vary, but the outcome doesn't: the train always
wins. Do you want a graphic analogy? An Amtrak engineer told
me that a train hitting a car is roughly comparable to your family
car running over a mailbox.
Most of these accidents occur during broad daylight with
good visibility and with the warning signals working perfectly.
Furthermore, most of the time the driver of the car involved is
sober.
Even more surprising, in about a third of all the car-train col-
lisions that occur at night, the car drives smack into the side of a
moving train. Speed is almost always the critical factor in these
accidents because the driver of the car is “overdriving” his head-
lights—that is, by the time his headlights reveal the train, he's
going so fast that he's unable to stop before reaching the crossing.
It's sad but true that an unknown percentage of these inci-
dents are actually suicides or attempts at suicide, as are many of
the pedestrian accidents (which are not included in these num-
bers). Even so, I think we could agree that those deaths and inju-
ries are all equally unnecessary.
It's rare to find a railroad engineer who hasn't been involved
in a grade-crossing accident. It's a traumatic experience for all
of them, of course. Some handle it philosophically, realizing that
they can't feel responsible for the death of someone who drove
around a gate and into the path of their train. For others, that's
easier said than done. Most railroads recognize that and provide
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