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[quote user="Murphy Siding"]      bucyrus-   I think you're playing the *If only* game.  Consider this-      Somewhere along the way, a lot of folks have put in a lot of effort and study, to figure out what is a reasonable time frame for having the crossing lights coem on, the bells start to ring, and for the arms to start dropping.  I'd have to believe that factors such as speed of the train, and the type of train were taken into account.       After some resonable figures were worked out,  those numbers were bumped up, call it margin of safety, CYA, etc...  It seems to me, that there is already some *extra*  built into the timing.       You're suggesting that *maybe*  things would have turned out differently *if only*  the engineer had been able to give a little extra, extra time, on top of the normal extra ttime already built in, an on top of the reasonable time already established.  Where do you stop?      If you add extra time, and drivers still get in the path of trains, do you ad more extra?  And when they still get hit, more yet?      It seems to me, that what's needed is more education for drivers of those vehicles that are crossing railroad tracks. *If only* they'd follow the traffic rules, maybe they wouldn't find themselves needing extra, extra, resonable  time.[/quote] Yes that is what I am doing.  But all those measures that you mention having been worked out over time were determined by people doing exactly the same thing I am doing.  And the process never ends.  The NTSB is doing the same thing I am doing as they look at this Texas crash. For this particular crash, I am not offering any remedy or suggesting anything be changed.  I am just looking at how it played out to see what I can see.  In the Nevada crash, however, I do believe the crossing setup is deficient and could be made much safer with no compromise.  The engineer on that Amtrak train involved in the crash feels the same way.    In this Texas case, perhaps more signal time would have prevented it, but there is something very powerful working against extending the signal time.  MUTCD experts have found if you make the warning times longer, drivers tend to take more risk in beating the train.  They perceive excessively long warnings as overkill, and take the matter into their own hands. They may be successful in beating a particular train, but the larger issue is that they will pay less heed to future warnings.   Therefore, counter intuitively, the traffic experts shorten the warning to save lives.
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