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 <o:p></o:p> I am just referring to a general principle that the higher the vehicle speed, the more crossing warning distance is needed.  The amount of time between the train activating the signals and arriving at the crossing is the duration of the warning.  But there is also the issue of the visual reach distance of the warning.  Just to clarify, when I mentioned extending the warning, I meant extending the visual reach distance of the warning, not extending the duration time of the warning, although both might be necessary to compensate for increasing vehicle speeds.   <o:p></o:p> It is true that the duration has to be long enough to allow the driver to react and stop.  But also, since the warning is conveyed to the driver visually, the driver has to be close enough to see it before he can react to it.  <o:p></o:p> For a vehicle moving at say 50 mph, both the duration and the warning distance are more than adequate.  But say a vehicle was going 500 mph on a collision course with an approaching train.  For one thing, the 30-second duration of the warning would not be enough time to stop the vehicle.  But in addition to that problem, the driver will have missed most of the warning duration because he would have been too far away to see it.  You could increase the duration of the warning to 2 minutes, but it would not make any difference if the driver were still in the next county when the warning began.  <o:p></o:p> So, fundamentally, you would have to move the advance warning RXR signs out much further from the crossing, or install additional flashers that would extend the visual reach of the flashers at the crossing.       <o:p></o:p> That other point I was making is that I read somewhere that there is a concern that if you move the advance warning too far out from the crossing to get the message to a driver earlier, the driver will have more time to forget the message by the time he gets to the crossing.  I guess that’s the law of unintended consequences.
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