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The train's locomotive and the truck were on a near perfect course to collide at the crossing.  Twenty-five seconds before reaching the crossing, both the train and the truck were about 3000 feet from the crossing and the flashers came on.  Traffic authorities say that the signals are visible from that distance although perhaps rounded off to an even half-mile or 2640 feet.   <o:p></o:p> Just because people can see the signals from half a mile away, is it reasonable to expect that everyone will and must see the signals at that point?  A driver’s attention cannot possibly be everywhere, so the argument that no accidents would occur if drivers paid attention is a faulty argument.  Even the most perfect driver is always not paying attention to some portion of his or her sphere of attention.  Generally on a road, a driver’s attention span will either be focused on the far or the near portion of the road ahead.  Generally, a driver has to focus on the road near and far just to stay on it.  A driver might have various reasons for focusing near or far, and might change from one to the other at times.  <o:p></o:p> Everybody knows that looking far will help identify obstructions and give the most time to react to them.  But, out in the middle of nowhere, a driver might grow complacent about the possibility of obstructions.  A grade crossing that has seldom or never been active in a driver’s memory of experience of that crossing might not even register as something to be looking far ahead for.  <o:p></o:p> Therefore, I conclude that a driver’s attention lapse on the far road ahead, for say a half-minute (3080 feet at 70mph), might be a completely functional and legal part of driving out there.  Further adding to a driver’s complacency, he or she probably does not feel distracted from the far road when looking at the near road.  The two are in a line, and attention can be readily toggled from near to far.   <o:p></o:p> Apparently during the first part of the Amtrak 25-second warning, this driver did not focus on either the signals flashing, or the train entering from one side of his sphere of attention.  During the driver’s approach, both the signal and the presence of the train would have grown in their visual obviousness.  Now there may be extenuating circumstances beyond just the normal application of driving attention out there, but for some reason, this driver apparently lost about 18 seconds of that 25-second warning.  That left 7 seconds to realize the emergency, hit the brakes, skid 300 feet, and hit the train.  <o:p></o:p> So the question is this:  <o:p></o:p> Why did driver lose those 18 seconds of the Amtrak warning?  Can it be just attributable to the normal application of driver attention out in the wide-open west?  The suggestion of cell phone, texting, or similar communication as being possible driver distraction is highly applicable here.  That may indeed be the next shoe to drop.  Traveling in a convoy can engender competition and boldness, and expressing this kind of bravado could also be distracting.  However, there may have been none of this type of activity distraction.  I could see it being just due to an 18-second lapse of focus on the far road.  There are only 25 seconds to work with.   <o:p></o:p> Because the warning begins with an indication of signals that are 3000 feet ahead of the driver, it seems quite reasonable and understandable that even the best of drivers might miss some of that warning as it begins, and not see the warning until they get a little closer.  So if you shave off say 10 seconds for that delayed perception, you only have 15 seconds left.  Then it takes 7 more seconds to stop, and that is a panic stop.  How long would a non-panic stop take?  Lets say a normal stop takes 12 seconds.  <o:p></o:p> That leaves a 3-second margin of safety.  Is that a reasonable safety margin, considering the potential loss of life if a driver happens to need 4 seconds instead of 3 seconds?  If that truck were a gasoline tanker, it could have killed half the people on the train.
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