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Breaking News - Another Fool tried to beat out a train (Spring, Tx)
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<p>I think they know the dangers, but they miscalculate. They misjudge the speed and distance of the train. Perhaps they could be educated that the gates are absolute stop and wait, but the misperception that they are not flows from the historical tradition of grade crossings. </p><p>With passive crossings, a driver is allowed to use his or her discretion to some extent as to whether or not it is safe to cross. Even activated signaled crossings without gates allow drivers to use their discretion in deciding whether it is safe to cross after being required to stop. It is not surprising that drivers think they are allowed to use the same discretion at gated crossings. </p><p>Moreover, their discretion ends up being highly distorted because they see every railroad crossing as producing a potentially massive delay, and they misjudge the speed and distance of approaching trains. </p><p>I think full width gate coverage would prevent all swerve-around-gate crashes. It is only a matter of funding to convert all active and passive crossings to full width gates. There would still be Run-Into-Train crashes caused by inattentive drivers, but there are other remedies for that problem. </p>
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