On
July 23, 2005, Kenneth M. Mead, Inspector General (IG) of the U.S.
Department of Transportation, testified on railroad grade-crossing
safety issues before the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee,
Railroads Subcommittee, U.S. House of Representatives. What is
vitally important about the IG’s testimony is that after
once again citing erroneous figures that tend to blame motorists
for the overwhelming majority of grade-crossing accidents, Mr.
Mead admitted that no reliable accident-causal information is currently
available. After decades of ignoring this information void, a quick
fix is both in order and readily at hand – for the nation
as a whole, and in Ohio.
Incredibly, early in the IG’s testimony, it was stated
that . . . further progress will be difficult because railroad accident
reports attributed 91 percent of collisions (over the last 5 years)
to reckless or inattentive drivers. For example, drivers ignore warning
signs or even drive around barriers as trains approach. While
Mr. Mead stated that he relied on railroad accident reports for his
91% figure – that is, reports filed by railroads to the Federal
Railroad Administration (FRA) – he still gave a degree of credence
to the notion that motorists are overwhelmingly at fault for grade-crossing
accidents. And in a circular fashion, the railroad industry has cited
the IG in claiming that 91% of grade-crossing accidents are attributed
to driver error – without acknowledging that the figure originally
came from its own accident reports. The truth is that there is no evidence
as to the relative causes of grade-crossing accidents –
the reason being, as the IC stated:
The Federal government investigates very few
crossing collisions and needs to develop strategies to increase
its involvement in investigations. FRA investigated
9 of the 3,045 crossing collisions that occurred in 2004.
FRA investigated 47, or 13 percent, of the 376 most serious
crossing decisions that occurred from 2000 to 2004, according
to FRA’s data base. We found that no Federal investigations
were conducted for the other 329 serious crossing collisions,
which caused 159 deaths and 1,024 injuries. FRA officials
stated that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)
is the lead Federal agency responsible for investigating
accidents, not FRA. However, NTSB tends to investigate only
major crossing collisions, and conducted just seven crossing
investigations from 2000 to 2004. Because the Federal government
does not independently investigate most collisions, information
that FRA gets concerning the causes comes almost exclusively
from self-reporting by railroads.
(It is also noted that another conclusion of the IG was that railroads
were under-reporting by 21% their grade-crossing accidents to the National
Response Center, thus not allowing Federal investigators to take timely
action.)
In
a nutshell, the reason why the relative causes of grade-crossing
accidents are unknown is simply that the government does not investigate
an adequate number of them. (Related to this reason is the under-reporting
of accidents on the part of the railroad industry.) FRA views itself
as a regulatory, rather than an investigative, agency and claims
that it is far too short of personnel to conduct accident investigations.
Similarly, NTSB claims that it does not have the resources –
largely devoted to the airline industry – to adequately investigate
railroad accidents. Still, if effective safety practices and procedures
are to be in place, it is essential to know what causes grade-crossing
accidents. Short of comprehensive investigations, an alternative is
close at hand.
In a typical recent year, there may be around 3,000 grade-crossing
accidents in the U.S., resulting in 375 deaths. This means that there
are over 2,500 surviving drivers. (In Ohio, there would be about 120
surviving drivers.) Excluding decisions in judicial proceedings –
which also could be used as accident-causal input – it would
seem that a continual program of interviewing the surviving drivers
would provide valuable insight into accident causes. What conditions
existed in the motor vehicle just prior to the collision? What was
the driver thinking? Did he hear the approaching train? Did the whistle
blow, but he didn’t realize it was an approaching train? Did
the whistle not blow? Did he see the approaching train? Was his vision
blocked? By what? What was his speed? Did he slow down? Was he cited
for a traffic violation? Was he distracted? Did the sun play a role?
Did he get stuck on the track? Was the crossing elevated? Was the approaching
road on an acute angle? How did he interpret the crossbuck? Did he
go around a depressed gate? Why? Did the gate malfunction? In what
way? Did he feel he was wrong? If not, did he sue the railroad? If
not, why? Did he settle with the railroad? Was he contacted by the
railroad claims’ department? Looking back, what, if anything,
should he have done differently? What did he learn from his accident?
What message(s) does he have for motorists, railroads and public officials?
These, and other questions, would provide skilled interviewers
and research analysts with much insight into the relative
causes of grade-crossing accidents. Analyses could divide
accident causes by type of safety device, crossing conditions,
and characteristics of drivers. In some cases, the underlying
causes of accidents may be a combination of factors, including
deficient crossing conditions and motorist behavior. There
are a variety of ways to conduct interviews and analyze ensuing data,
but no matter, the point is that survivors of grade-crossing accidents – especially
the drivers – have much to contribute to the quest for identifying
the causes of such accidents. If the federal government would not take
the lead, States could develop a survivor-research program on their
own. Ohio in particular has the infrastructure and resources to do
so. |
