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This is the issue:  <o:p></o:p> There are multiple track mainlines with pedestrian grade crossings protected by automatic warning flashers.  A train on any one of the mainline tracks activates flashers that apply to all of the mainline tracks.  This would be identical to the set up for a multiple track grade crossing on a road.  If a train is coming, the driver is required to yield to the entire crossing, including all of the tracks even though the train is on just one of those tracks.  <o:p></o:p> But in a station, passengers board trains that stop.  The way the law is now, if a train is standing on the third track from the station, and if you want to board that train, and if there is a pedestrian crossing all three tracks, then that standing train will be activating the crossing signals for the entire crossing.  That means that you are prohibited from crossing tracks #1 and #2 in order to board your train on track #3.  And this would be the case even if no other trains are approaching on tracks #1 and #2.  So, in this example, the activated warning signals are pointless, and they prevent people from boarding the train.   <o:p></o:p> So that is what the proposed new law wants to remedy by making it legal for pedestrians to cross tracks against activated warning signals, provided that there are no trains approaching on those tracks, and provided that the pedestrian does not walk in front of a stopped train in the process of crossing the tracks.  <o:p></o:p> However, here is the other side of the argument.  If a standing train has activated the warning signals for all three tracks, and if no other trains are approaching, that warning will be a false alarm.  If people are allowed to dismiss the warning as a false alarm and cross the tracks, and if another train happens to approach, then the false alarm will change to a real alarm.  And yet, the pedestrians, by listening to the alarm alone, will have no way of knowing that the false alarm has changed into a real alarm.  It sounds the same either way.   <o:p></o:p> And as a backdrop to this scenario, pedestrians will have become habituated to the protection of the warning signals over time, and will have consequently let their guard down.  Therefore, because they are relying more on the signals and less on their own natural attention and wariness, it becomes extra dangerous to permit them to decide some warnings are false alarms and some are not.
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