(The following story by Zack Southwell appeared on The News Star website on February 16, 2010.)
MONROE, La. — State police and officers from the Monroe Police Department and the Union Pacific Railroad Police conducted a railroad crossing enforcement detail Tuesday morning.
Trooper Mark Dennis said the detail was at a rail yard near Mississippi Street in Monroe.
“We typically perform the enforcement detail at random times,” Dennis said. “We try to do it as often as possible.”
Louisiana ranked fifth in 2008 in the nation for highway-rail grade crossing collisions and sixth in the nation for railroad fatality crashes, Dennis said in a news release.
“This is why the state police, Monroe and the Union Pacific Railroad police teamed up to enforce traffic laws at highway-rail grade crossings in Monroe,” Dennis said.
During the three-hour detail, officers issued 10 citations for offenses that included failure to obey traffic control devices at railroad crossings, two child restraint violations, one seat belt violation, driving under suspension and improper passing.
Railroad police also issued several warnings to pedestrians trespassing on railroad property.
The release stated while the enforcement detail is an important part of traffic safety, it is equally important to educate the public about highway-rail grade crossing safety. In 1972, when Operation Lifesaver began, there was an estimated 12,000 collisions each year between trains and motor vehicles. In 2008 that number had been reduced by 80 percent to 2,391 collisions.
The goal of Operation Lifesaver is to end collisions, deaths and injuries at places where roadways cross train tracks and on railroad right-of-ways.
“Trains cannot stop quickly and it is the responsibility of the motorist to yield to all train traffic,” Dennis said. “It is illegal to stop, pass or shift on railroad crossings. It is also illegal to go around crossing arms or pass through red flashing signals.”
Dennis said motorists must still yield the right-of-way to trains even if there are no signals.