(The following article by Robin Fitzgerald was posted on the Biloxi Sun Herald website on August 13.)
GULFPORT, Miss. — A driver looks ahead and sees a railroad crossing but no stop sign. Should the driver stop?
That depends.
For most drivers, the correct answer is to slow down, look and listen in case a train is approaching. But the answer is an emphatic “yes” for drivers of a school bus, a vehicle for hire (such as a cab) or a vehicle carrying explosives or flammable liquids.
These “rules of the road” from state traffic laws answer only part of a question posed to The Sun Herald’s Sound Off. The reader also wonders whether a lack of stop signs at some crossings is to blame for increased car-train collisions.
That’s not the case in Harrison County, which has the third-highest death rate per capita at railroad crossings nationwide.
Increased collisions are due, in part, to drivers not paying attention to road signs or forgetting what they learned when they studied for their driver’s license test, said Master Sgt. Joe Gazzo of the Mississippi Highway Patrol.
“That, and the fact that the speed limit on trains has increased from 25 mph to 45 mph over the years and there’s more people driving across the tracks,” he said.
Four of the eight traffic deaths in Harrison County since January involved vehicles at crossings marked by a combination of a crossbuck sign and flashing light signal or a stop sign. The other four who died were pedestrians.
The eight fatalities bring the number of train-related deaths in Harrison County to 33 in a five-year period.
The reader’s comment about the stop sign instruction makes it unclear if the reader was referring to instructions from the state driver’s license manual or a comment made by a testing clerk after someone took a driving test, Gazzo said.
As for the issue of stop signs at crossings, federal regulations prohibit stop signs at railroad crossings equipped with active control devices such as gates or flashing lights. Gulfport officials are among several in South Mississippi who had to remove some stop signs after the practice was questioned in 1998.
“We thought we were doing the right thing,” said Gulfport Traffic Manager Rodney Ladner.
State and federal laws hold municipalities and counties responsible for placing road signs or warning devices at public railroad crossings. Pavement markings and a railway warning sign or a crossbuck sign are considered sufficient at crossings with a low volume of train traffic.
Some sections of trackare rarely or no longer used, such as one in Gulfport that crosses U.S. 49 and Three Rivers Road at Creosote Road.
CSX Railroad and the state Department of Transportation have offered to pay for warning devices at the busiest train crossings in Gulfport, Biloxi, Ocean Springs and Pass Christian. Only Biloxi’s City Council has expressed a willingness to consider closing several crossings as a public safety measure. In Gulfport, the mayor supports closures, but the City Council does not.