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[quote user="Convicted One"] [quote user="Bucyrus"] However, my larger point is that the reflector mandate represents an admission on the part of the industry that running into trains is partly the fault of the railroad.  .   [/quote] You really think so? I see it as more of an indication that the RR understands how careless many drivers are, and need all the supplementary warning that is possible.Sort of like when you put crash curbs on either side of drive-in doors on buildings. Not that the building is going to jump out in front of cars trying to enter, but just that some fools are not going to display due caution, so you try to protect your own interest as best you can[/quote]I agree that reflectors will do as you say, and that they make sense as self-protection to the railroads (at one level).  But I believe the federally mandated reflectors are a double-edge sword, and I want to point out the other edge. The broad effect of the Federal edict requires a sweeping justification to convince the entire industry that the cost of a universal adoption of reflectors is worth it.  That sweeping justification has been a declaration by the FRA that freight trains are hard to see at night.  This powerful statement issued from a high Federal office introduces a sea change in the normal interpretation of the laws that apply to grade crossings.  Previously all the traffic laws held that trains had the undisputed right of way. But the rationale for reflectors raises a conflict with that undisputed right of way that trains were once thought to have had.  It shifts liability for collisions in favor of the highway users and against the railroads.  The right of way of trains is no longer undisputed if one can argue that they ran into a train because they could not see it.  A driver cannot yield to something they cannot see.So every single railroad grade crossing in the country incurs added liability for the owner railroad with the FRA declaration that trains can be hard to see at night, no matter whether the crossing is signalized or not, or illuminated by roadside lighting or not.
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