WICHITA, Kan. — Do you speed up or slow down when you drive up to a railroad crossing?
Police are watching to see how you react because they want to prevent the ugly scene when a car and a train collide. Last year in Kansas, there were 61 collisions at crossings, television station KAKE reported..
Officers spent the day riding along with Burlington Northern train engineers, looking for drivers who ignore flashing lights and lowering guardrails, and then reporting them to officers waiting along the tracks.
It doesn’t take long to spot many violators, and some are even pedestrians.
Ten tickets are written in just two hours during the ride along, which is a frustrating glimpse of what train workers see everyday, and engineers warn it can take up to a mile and a half to stop a moving train.
Sedgwick County Sheriff Deputies, Wichita Police, and Highway Patrol all helped with the “Officer On A Train” ride along, and they usually do this a few times a year.
One more thing, police will ticket you if you don’t wait for the guardrails to go all the way up. It’s just a few safety reminders that could save your life.