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A Big Change for Grade Crossings?

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Posted by schlimm on Wednesday, January 9, 2013 11:02 PM

Looks like it was pulled and all history of it erased.  Why and what that means is unknown, but sounds like the heavy hand of censorship strikes again.

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Posted by blownout cylinder on Thursday, January 10, 2013 4:34 AM

schlimm

Looks like it was pulled and all history of it erased.  Why and what that means is unknown, but sounds like the heavy hand of censorship strikes again.

It was a political post....

Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry

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Posted by Anonymous on Thursday, January 10, 2013 8:18 AM
In reading the report some more, I am not sure what it is saying about tort reform and crossing liability.
 
I can see two bases for liability:

1) Liability for a failure to activate.

2) Liability for the crossing somehow contributing to an accident even though the signals activated and the driver did not yield.

When I think of tort reform solving the liability for crossings, I think of item #2, but not item #1. Somebody certainly should be liable for item #1. But that leads me to wonder if item #2 ever actually happens, or if it is an urban myth. Giving trains the right of way, and then suing the railroad if a train hits a vehicle sounds like a great injustice. But does it really happen, or is it just something that people like to complain about?

The report reference to the Italian system describes item #2. I would think that there would still be liability for signal failure to activate. I don’t see how you get rid of liability for that unless you get rid of the signals, and put the onus entirely on the driver as zugmann had mentioned. But we have moved beyond that simplicity of responsibility, and placed a variety of warning devices at crossings.

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