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Taking On a Safety Issue: Hazardous Railroad Crossings

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , , , , , , , , , ,

I made a Public Comment at the meeting of the Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee (MCSAC) on June 6, 2023, related to railway crossing safety. I was motivated to do so by two things.

First of all, I have listened to members of the trucking industry point to the potential of side guards causing an increase in tractor-trailer hang ups on high centered railroad crossings — using it as a basis for opposing a side guard regulation. Yet, in ten years, I have never heard them discuss how they could address this safety problem, which occurs even without side guards.

Secondly, when I was around 26, I worked as a Hospice Pilot Program Analyst for Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Michigan. After some time on the job, one of my coworkers had a baby, who was the delight of her life.  After my family moved away from the Detroit area, we kept in contact mostly through exchanging Christmas cards. One year I received a note from our former boss, who told me that my friend’s now 16 year-old had died when the car in which she was a passenger was hit by a train on her way to her high school. I wrote about her story in a post, Too Often, Too Little, Too Late; A Conspiracy of Silence , in 2015:

“Fast forward to 2013, when I, too, experienced the awful devastation of losing a child [make that two] to an unexpected, horrific, potentially-preventable, premature death due to a car crash [this time hit by a truck]. Now I understood what my friend had faced.

Just recently, I tried to reach out to her again–to no avail–after I ran across the news article and the picture of baby “Joy” when going through boxes at our home. I re-read the details of the crash and discovered that there had been no flashers or guard at the fateful railroad crossing–less than a mile from her high school.

As a bereaved-mom-become-safety-advocate, I wanted to know if something had been done to improve safety at the site of that crash 34 years ago. I was encouraged to find out, from the township responsible for that section of roads, that they had bypassed the option of flashers and guards and immediately closed off that particular dirt road where it crossed the tracks.

A good move. Chances are it saved someone. But it was Too Late for Joy.

Why does it Too Often take a death to wake us up to the dangers that were there all along?”

I did not hear from my friend for 40 years because her grief was so intense and it was hard for her to see me with my family of nine living children. In 2020, out of the blue, I received an email from her. Among other things, she shared with me what she and her husband and younger daughter had done following their tragic loss:

[We] took on the State of Michigan after the train crash that killed [Joy and her friend Hope].  After a public hearing, we convinced the state to close the railroad crossing near [the] High School where the crash occurred.  The crossing was at the bottom of a gravel hill and no warning lights or gates were at the site.  State inspectors would park at the top of the hill and walk down to “inspect” it, too concerned to drive down. The site could not be fixed to make it safe for others and the road leading to it is now closed.  No one else will die there.  During our investigation, we found that many other dangerous railroad sites like this exist.  I was too devastated to do anything about those sites in the way you have, and I admire your courage for that.

June 6, 2023

Administrator Hutcheson,

I hope that FMCSA will seriously consider our attached petition and do what is within your power to make railway crossings safer.

Respectfully,

Jerry & Marianne Karth

Here’s our petition to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration: Petition to the FMCSA for Railway Crossing Safety Measures

Here’s our petition a few days earlier to the Federal Railroad Administration: Petition to the FRA for Railway Crossing Safety Measures

Relevant Resources On This Topic:

What can we learn about industry concerns regarding a potential side guard regulation?