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I am not suggesting that the driver is innocent, but only looking at it through the eyes of a jury.  They will likely take into account the poor visibility at the crossing.  Technically, visibility should not matter because the driver must yield no matter how poor the visibility.  Yet trees are routinely cut back in order to improve visibility, so a lack of visibility could be seen as a hardship when looked at in those terms.  STOP, LOOK, and LISTEN is a cliché, but it may also be a requirement in some cases to accomplish yielding which is always required by law.  But yielding does not fundamentally require a driver to stop, look, and listen.  Fundamentally, it only requires a driver to look and give way if a train is approaching.  Yielding is a bit fuzzy.  If you get hit by a train, you did not yield.  That much is certain.  If you get missed by ten feet, did you yield?  You did not give way, but if you get missed, it could be argued that you did not have to give way.  A cop would say that ten feet is too close, and you should have given way, so you did not yield.  So it goes to how much danger the train posed with its speed and proximity.  Yielding is also confused with merging.  I have seen a highway patrol officer on TV lecturing the public on the fact that traffic is backed up at a yield sign entrance to a big highway.  He said there is no reason to stop there.  He was wrong. I would say that a crossing such as this one, where yielding is impossible without stopping, should have a stop sign to take the ambiguity out of what would constitute yielding.  And regarding the precaution of listening at this crossing:  There is no way I would drive across blindly while relying only on the fact that I could not hear a train.  They don’t always make a lot of engine noise, and they don’t always blow the horn.  And the cabs of big trucks can be very noisy.
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