Edit post

Edit your reply below.

Post Body
Enter your post below.
[quote user="Falcon48"]One thing I'm not seeing in this discussion is actual statistics on the relative safety (or lack thereof) of FRA compliant quiet zones.  As has been pointed out in some of the other posts, FRA believes quiet zones that are established in compliance with its rule are as safe as non-compliant crossings where locomotives sound their horns, and has some fairly intricate statistical measures (all of which predate the rule) purporting to quantify the relative effectiveness of various substitues to horn blowing.  Lots of quiet zones were established (or continued) under this rule, and they have now been in place long enough that there should be meaningful statistics as to their actual safety experience before and after the quiet zones were established.  I haven't seen any analysis like this.  Has anyone else?[/quote] I have not found such information yet.  I did find this FRA reference that does indicate that quiet zone crossings must pose no more risk than they would if they were not quiet zones and the horn was sounded:   "The state or local government must demonstrate through data and analysis that implementation of these measures will effect a reduction in risk at public highway-rail grade crossings within the quiet zone (viewing risk in the aggregate rather than on a crossing-by-crossing basis) sufficient to fully compensate for the absence of the warning provided by the locomotive horn.   For purposes of this paragraph, risk will be viewed in terms of the quiet zone as a whole, rather than at each individual grade crossing. The aggregate reduction in predicted collision risk for the quiet zone as a whole must be shown to compensate for the lack of a locomotive horn."   It does raise this question however: Suppose you had a crossing that was not in a quiet zone, and yet it had full roadway gates and divided medians --AND-- the horn was routinely sounded.  Now, suppose you wanted to convert that crossing to a quiet zone crossing.  According to the FRA, if you remove the horn, you have to add new safety features to compensate for the increased risk due to losing the horn.  What could you add to this crossing to compensate for removing the horn?
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag