(The following story by Heather Collura appeared on the USA Today website on July 30.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Deaths at railroad crossings generally have dropped in the past 10 years, but the annual rate remains the equivalent of one person killed a day.
That, plus accidents at crossings averaging to about eight a day, has members of Congress, railroad officials and a consumer safety group pushing legislation that would provide the first major upgrade to rail-safety law since 1970.
There were 368 deaths last year, 3% more than the previous year but 20% fewer than in 1997, according to the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). Overall, there were fewer than 3,000 accidents last year, down from almost 4,000 a decade ago, the FRA reports. The number of deaths and accidents have continued to fall in 2007, dropping 10% and 4% respectively through April compared with the same period last year.
While that trend is encouraging, FRA spokesman Warren Flatau said, the numbers remain troublesome because most accidents are “largely avoidable and preventable.”
Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., has proposed legislation that includes safety provisions aimed at bringing the number of accidents down further.
The bill has cleared the transportation and infrastructure committee and is expected to be taken up by the full House after Labor Day, Oberstar said. Sixty-three co-sponsors, most of them Democrats, have signed onto the bill.
“Although I am encouraged by improvements in the 2006 rail-safety statistics, I believe we still have a long way to go,” he said in a May hearing.
“Serious accidents resulting in fatalities, injuries and environmental damages continue to occur.”
The legislation would:
• Require that railroad companies keep up to date the FRA’s National Crossing Inventory, a database that tracks the condition of the warning devices and maintenance records at crossings.
For example, Flatau said there are crossings listed in the inventory that have been closed for almost two decades.
• Create a toll-free number to report grade-crossing problems, such as damaged lights or gates, overgrown vegetation blocking sight or warning-device malfunction.
• Establish more uniform regulations for removing brush and other vegetation from obstructing the view of pedestrians and motorists.
• Reform the hours that railroad employees can work and the hours of rest required between their shifts.
Union Pacific Railroad spokesman James Barnes said it was “premature to comment” on the bill because it still could change.
Flatau said the FRA agrees with most of the legislation, except for minor changes in language.
Patricia Abbate, executive director of Citizens for Rail Safety, said the lack of updated information for the FRA’s database about broken signals and other problems at crossings is a reason why some accidents still occur.
Abbate supports the safety legislation.
“If you don’t start with accurate information, how can you move forward to make these places better?” Abbate asked.
Citizens for Rail Safety is a non-profit citizens activist group that sponsors university studies on rail-safety issues and reports the findings and recommendations.
A major concern of Citizens for Rail Safety, Abbate said, is the fact that of the approximately 144,000 existing public grade crossings, 55% do not have active warning devices, such as lights or gates.
“We’re complacent when it comes to rail safety and security,” she said.