(The following article by Frank Wiget was published by the Gary Post-Tribune on June 5.)
PORTAGE, Ind. — A 30-year-old Porter Township man said he didn’t want the railroad crossing gate to hit his car, so he hurried across the tracks Tuesday afternoon — only to get a ticket.
That was no excuse, said Portage police Cpl. John Ryan, who wrote Ronald A. Kranz a ticket for disregarding a railroad warning device.
He faces a fine of at least $110 and six points on his driver’s license, according to Tammy Wagner, regional crossing and trespasser manager for the Federal Railroad Administration.
Cpl. John Ryan stopped Kranz south of Hamstrom Road after he crossed the CSX tracks just before a freight train reached the crossing at 3:31 p.m.
Ryan said the deaths on May 12 at the County Line Road crossing just west of Portage in Gary sparked Tuesday’s crackdown. A mother and daughter from Gary’s Miller area died.
The woman encountered gates down at the crossing just north of U.S. 20 after a car in front of her sport utility vehicle passed through the lowered gates, witnesses said. She drove into the path of an Amtrak passenger train traveling nearly 80 mph.
Portage police were also reminded of the Jan. 11 car-train crash on Hamstrom Road that killed two Portage High School students and put a third in the hospital.
Portage police officers and federal railroad officials worked CSX crossings at Hamstrom, Willowcreek and McCool roads north of Central Avenue Tuesday afternoon and evening.
“We were hoping not to have to issue tickets, that motorists are obeying the law,” Ryan said before they started the enforcement project.
Within about an hour, four drivers had been cited for disregarding railroad warning devices at different crossings.
“There will be no tolerance for going through even flashing signals,” Ryan said. “The gates go down within three or four seconds after the signals flash red.”
Wagner said 50 percent of the collisions are at railroad crossings that have flashing lights or lights and gates.
“Look, listen and live,” Wagner warns motorists.
During 2002, Wagner said, there were 174 highway railroad crossing collisions in Indiana, compared with 165 a year earlier. Forty-four people were injured and 17 died in those crashes last year, compared to 62 injuries and 19 fatalities in 2001, she said.
Nationally, there were 3,062 crashes at railroad crossings, 993 injuries and 355 fatalities in 2002, Wagner said.