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[quote user="Railway Man"] One of the unfortunate byproducts of the public's attitude that safety is the sole responsibility of the state and the corporation, instead of the individual, is that it results in LESS safety than the public could have had.  The public's attitude causes concious decisions by people like me to implement no solution at all unless it can be an almost bullet-proof solution.  For example, if we have a dangerous situation where the law doesn't require we install a safety device, and we know if we install a safety device it will work 70% of the time, we will probably NOT install it, because if someone gets hurt during the 30% of the time the device doesn't work we're going to get slammed in court, but if someone gets hurt and there's no device at all, we're blame free.RWM[/quote]Railway Man,I think this is a very interesting point, and I agree that a safety device that is not 100% effective will raise liability because, in the case of its failure, the one who has installed the safety device has admitted to having a known hazard.  This is a part of my objection to the reflector mandate.  Reflectors will not work all of the time without stringent maintenance that I doubt that will be the case.But there is even another pricklier element to a hit-n-miss safety device that is less obvious, although you have alluded to it.  Speaking in pure theoretical numbers for simplicity, say you have a hazard with no safety device that causes 100 accidents per year.  Then say you install a safety device that is effective 70% of the time.  On the surface, it would seem that the number of accidents should drop to 70 per year.  However, the provision of the safety device has lowered the natural wariness of persons exposed to the hazard as they become dependent on the safety device to protect them.  Therefore, during the 30% of the time that it fails there will be a higher likelihood of an accident than there would have been before the safety device was installed.  That is the largely hidden, unintended consequence of a safety device.  The only way to avoid it is to build something that is nearly infallible.  Make it robust, and durable.  Otherwise a hit-n-miss safety device will have the unintended consequence of increasing the danger because it lowers human wariness.  An example is the child-proof container.  It makes it harder for a child to open a bottle of poison, but also makes adults less careful about keeping bottles of poison away from children.    The reflector mandate is definitely a hit-n-miss remedy, so it is bound to trigger the unintended consequence to some extent, although it may not be enough to create a net loss of safety.  But it is a slippery slope as you say.  And the FRA has taken the first step onto it.  And once on a slippery slope, you always end up at the bottom.  If reflectors are worthwhile, then electrified markers will be more effective.  I would submit that standing trains are harder to see than moving trains because they lack the visual component of motion.  Electrified markers could be made to flash or even move, in order to make up for the loss of animation when a reflectorized train is stopped.On the thread about LRT $$$, I mentioned the coming technology which I believe will soon be in the cars we buy, and how it will be like driving with a highway patrolman sitting next to you.  Part of this on-board technology will be the ability to provide cab-signaling so that all traffic signals are also displayed in each automobile.  The cab signals might be enhanced with audible signals or even verbal instructions.  When approaching a grade crossing one of these technology equipped vehicles will pick up signals that will be transmitted into automobiles in the form of audio/visual warnings sufficient to wake up sleeping drivers.  A driver approaching such a crossing would press an acknowledgement button in order prove that he or she is awake, and thus to be spared the audio/ visual warning.  Not only would this be a vast improvement over today's active crossings, but it would easily accommodate the immediate equipping of all grade crossings, therefore eliminating all current passive crossings. This kind of technology could simply stop your car in the clear if a train were present or approaching.  End of problem.
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