The Butler I understand your thinking, however, just because you broke the law and got hurt on someone's property, does not absolve the property owner of responsibility. See the thread about the kids who were electrocuted while climbing on freight cars and touched the catenary.
I understand your thinking, however, just because you broke the law and got hurt on someone's property, does not absolve the property owner of responsibility. See the thread about the kids who were electrocuted while climbing on freight cars and touched the catenary.
I understand what you are saying, and it probably applies to this case. Suppose a driver passes through the crossing when the gates and signals have failed to activate as a train approaches. Suppose the driver assumes the crossing is clear because the signals are not activated, and that driver therefore proceeds across. Suppose the driver makes it across, but clears the approaching train only by a few yards.
A witnessing cop would give the driver a ticket for failing to yield. But in this civil case, it seems that BNSF was liable for the signal failure even though the law required the driver to not rely on the signals.
I think the word "presumption" comes into play here.
We know we're supposed to stop at stop signs. We also know that not every intersection has a stop sign, at least not controlling traffic in the direction we are travelling. We would therefore presume that if we are travelling down the road and see no stop sign that we have no duty to stop (local familiarity notwithstanding).
That would be despite the fact that there is normally a stop sign at that location that would require us to stop, however it was taken down by some event or another (vandalism, a previous accident) and had not yet been replaced.
So too it could be argued for railroad crossings protected by lights and gates. If the lights and gates aren't activated, it can be presumed that there is no train approaching thus no need to stop. This is why crews are notified of malfunctioning crossing protection and must cross at reduced speed, prepared to flag, or some cases required to do so.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
tree68 I think the word "presumption" comes into play here. We know we're supposed to stop at stop signs. We also know that not every intersection has a stop sign, at least not controlling traffic in the direction we are travelling. We would therefore presume that if we are travelling down the road and see no stop sign that we have no duty to stop (local familiarity notwithstanding). That would be despite the fact that there is normally a stop sign at that location that would require us to stop, however it was taken down by some event or another (vandalism, a previous accident) and had not yet been replaced. So too it could be argued for railroad crossings protected by lights and gates. If the lights and gates aren't activated, it can be presumed that there is no train approaching thus no need to stop. This is why crews are notified of malfunctioning crossing protection and must cross at reduced speed, prepared to flag, or some cases required to do so.
I believe your example of the missing stop sign would be accurate, however I believe the analogy you make between your stop sign example and railroad crossings protected by lights and gates is incorrect.
In the grade crossing example you cite, there would not necessarily be a requirement for the driver to stop, but there would be a requirement to yield. Yielding requires the driver to slow down if necessary and to be able to stop short of the crossing if a train is approaching, and to look in both directions to make sure no train is approaching before proceeding across. If visibility is short, the driver may be required to actually stop short of the crossing to make sure it is clear to cross.
This requirement for drivers to yield is commanded by the crossbuck at signalized crossings 24 hours a day, no matter whether a train is approaching or not, and no matter whether the signals are activated or not. This is because the crossbuck is equivalent to a YIELD sign.
Bucyrus I believe your example of the missing stop sign would be accurate, however I believe the analogy you make between your stop sign example and railroad crossings protected by lights and gates is incorrect.
What we have to concern ourselves with is the public's presumption that they will be suitably warned by the installed warning devices if a train is approaching.
The law may state that the crossbucks alone demand that a motorist yield to an approaching train, and I would argue that most people would exercise that caution at a crossing protected only by crossbucks (well, some people would).
But the public presumes that the installed warning devices will function properly, thus providing the necessary warning. They will also presume that if the devices are not functioning, that there is no train approaching the crossing.
Right, wrong, or indifferent, it is a factor that I feel is a major player in this case.
Paul -- *A trial is commonly referred to as the 'trier of fact' or the 'finder of facts', etc. - which is its primary role in our legal process and system." -- oh how I wish I could believe that a civil trial was indeed a 'finder of facts', but I have been involved in too many accidents and incident investigations, and studied too many, to be able to. Perhaps it was true, once upon a time; perhaps it is still true in the majority of simpler situations. It would be nice to think so. But in complex accidents and incidents, no. I can cite -- without effort -- at least a dozen major accidents involving air, marine, and rail, in which a trial jury reached a conclusion, substantiated by a large monetary award, which was directly contrary to the conclusions reached by the Transportation Safety Board or the NTSB (the two I am most closely associated with). It's just the way it is, though -- and I stand by my original comment, which is that I wish that NTSB had the resources to investigate this sort of thing, so that we could know what happened (and, even with evidence tampering if indeed there was any, they could have figured it out).
Hi Paul,
How do you get a copy of the memorandum about this accident. My only experience with the judicial system was with jury duty and this opened my eyes to the fact that everything isn't as it seems.Thanks
Richard Vohs
tree68 Bucyrus I believe your example of the missing stop sign would be accurate, however I believe the analogy you make between your stop sign example and railroad crossings protected by lights and gates is incorrect. What we have to concern ourselves with is the public's presumption that they will be suitably warned by the installed warning devices if a train is approaching. The law may state that the crossbucks alone demand that a motorist yield to an approaching train, and I would argue that most people would exercise that caution at a crossing protected only by crossbucks (well, some people would). But the public presumes that the installed warning devices will function properly, thus providing the necessary warning. They will also presume that if the devices are not functioning, that there is no train approaching the crossing. Right, wrong, or indifferent, it is a factor that I feel is a major player in this case.
I absolutely agree that the public presumes infallible protection from the signals, as you say. And if the signals did indeed fail in the Anoka case, that presumption probably played a role in the driver failing to see the approaching train. And also, the crossbuck plays exactly the same role at a non-signaled crossing as well, and I do agree that drivers are more inclined to yield at non-signalized crossings because drivers realize that there are no signals to rely on there.
However, according to OL, FRA, and MNDOT, it is illegal for drivers to pass through a signalized grade crossing while not yielding, but rather, presuming that if the warning devices are not functioning, there is no train approaching. I could not get a response to a letter to the Minnesota Highway Patrol asking for their comment on this, and the officer I spoke to on the phone seemed unaware of the requirement to yield to a non-activated, signalized crossing.
This point is interesting to me because I don’t believe many drivers yield to non-activated, signalized grade crossings, or even realize that they are supposed to. They naturally presume that the signals will protect them as you say. Interestingly, recent studies have shown that most drivers are not even aware of the fact that a crossbuck means yield. Instead, they simply interpret the crossbuck as an identifier of a railroad crossing. Therefore, there is a nationwide task underway to install YIELD signs on all non-signalized grade crossings, in addition to the crossbucks on them.
I asked OL, FRA, MNDOT, and MHP why they are not adding YIELD signs to signalized crossings for the same reason they are adding them to non-signalized crossings. After all, if the crossbuck requires drivers to yield at signalized crossings that are non-activated, as a precaution in case of signal failure upon the approach of a train, and drivers don’t know that the crossbuck means yield, then it would be just as important to add YIELD signs to signalized crossings as it is to add them to non-signalized crossings. However, OL, FRA, MNDOT, and MHP either would not comment on that or said that adding YIELD signs to signalized crossings would confuse drivers, and would not be necessary because the automatic signals cannot fail to activate.
I get the impression that these agencies are in somewhat of a catch-22 about telling drivers they can’t rely on the automatic signals, on one hand, and on the other hand, admitting that those signals can fail to activate.
My 2 year old grandson loves trains. Last weekend, we were sitting in a parking lot near an intersection so he could watch the light rail trains and NS freight go by.
While we were sitting there my wife and I were conversing about the number of people who were stopping in bumper to bumper traffic ON the tracks while the traffic signal just past the tracks was red. An LRV train passes about every 7 minutes. As we watched, a line of cars did just that. The crossing bell began to ring, the traffic signal turned green to clear the tracks, but it takes a few seconds to cycle as it first stops the traffic on the other road. Then, as is common in Charlotte, the second car in line took a very long time to finish dialing the phone and begin to move. During that time the gates came down, trapping the third car between the gates.
After several seconds of panicky indecision with the driver first trying to back up and then pull forward, the driver was finally able to clear the tracks just as the train came over the hill into view. I don't believe that the LRV operator ever saw the situation.
Had she been hit, you KNOW she would have sued CATS, as would all the people injured in the LRV emergency stop.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
I may be cold-hearted but I have to place the blame on the driver. If the gates were down and he drove around them, he was stupid and now he's dead. and so are his friends. If they were not, he still should have proceeded with caution across the tracks. Sounds like a bunch of young guys being reckless, thinking they are invincible and can live forever. I do feel sorry for their families, but I don't think BNSF should have to pay for someone else's stupid judgment. As a friend says, "you can't fix stupid" and he's right.
I can remember Dad getting into arguments with people at crossings who wanted him to go around the gates so they could get through too. He'd never think of doing it and he told more than one person that he'd seen first hand what damage a train can do to the human body and it ain't pretty. One co-worker got run over in the yards and they had to pick up the pieces in a box. When my Dad worked the yards, there were no tall light towers, it was totally dark except for their lanterns and engine lights, so he had to be extremely careful all the time. Mom was relieved when he finally got enough seniority to be assigned to the yard office, no more outside work and a lot safer.
It is amazing how impatient some otherwise rational people get when they're behind the wheel. A few months ago I was stopped a three-lane wide highway off ramp waiting to turn left, and in the right hand lane was an SUV with a guy and it appeared several kids waiting to turn right, with a big tanker truck behind him also waiting to turn right (there's an petroleum plant nearby.) There's a stoplight and it's clearly marked "NO TURN ON RED" but apparently the trucker couldn't wait to pulled around the SUV by going into the middle lane, then made a sharp right turn onto the cross-street - in the process, smashing and scraping the left front portion of the SUV. The driver never even slowed down.
Anyway...re the RR accident, I think another term that might come into play is "reasonable expectation". Remember this accident happened at 10 PM, meaning of course it was dark. I think it could be easily argued that the driver would have a reasonable expectation that if a train was approaching, the flashers would be going and the crossgate down. If they weren't, it would be tough to blame the driver for what happened.
Remember too that this was a civil case not a criminal case. In a civil case, the weight of evidence required to find guilt is less than in a criminal case (See: Orenthal James Simpson vs. State of California). There only needed to be sufficient evidence to show that BNSF's actions or lack of actions allowed the accident and deaths to happen, even if there isn't enough evidence to find someone criminally liable for manslaughter.
I'd be a little suspicious too of BNSF trying to blame the signal maintainer or other employee. Railroads, like any large company, often try to wriggle out of something like this by blaming the employee involved. A nasty tidbit I came upon years back in reading about an fatal locomotive crash was that if someone dies and their body is burned by gasoline or diesel fuel, the resulting chemical reactions often cause tests done on the remains to show the presence of alcohol. Apparently railroads have sometimes used this as a defense when an accident has occurred - hey, we're not to blame, the engineer was drunk.
The point I mentioned about the law requiring drivers to yield at signalized crossings even if the signals are not activated would have been something to consider in the Anoka crash if the signals did indeed fail. However, I have yet to see any proof that they did fail. In my opinion, the State Patrol test reached a false conclusion.
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