Putting the Brakes on a Dangerous Habit : Trains: Fatalities involving car drivers who race through crossing zones are rising. Police set up an operation to catch motorists who stray onto the wrong side of the tracks.

Bell police detective Hector Camacho, a walkie-talkie in hand, stood in the cab of a creeping locomotive on Friday when a dented four-door Buick sped across the Otis Street crossing less than 40 feet from the engine.

“Jesus, lady!” Camacho yelled as he radioed a nearby squad car, which eventually pulled the woman over and issued her a $100 citation for running the flashing red lights at the rail crossing.

“She never slowed down, she just gunned it,” Camacho said. “She had two kids in the back seat. If that car had stalled, we would have nailed them.”

The number of people violating railroad crossing zones along this six-mile stretch of Union Pacific tracks in southeast Los Angeles County is among the highest in California, and Camacho was aboard the “Trooper Special” to help nab motorists or pedestrians busting through, going around or racing under crossing gates or flashing signals.

The veteran detective was part of the inaugural operation to cut down on railroad accidents, which targeted the cities of Vernon, Maywood, Huntington Park, Bell and Cudahy, an area considered among the most dangerous in the state. From his perch, Camacho would radio two chase units, which issued 17 tickets to impatient drivers in less than 90 minutes.

“At times we’ve all had to wait at a crossing, and we’ve all thought about running it,” Camacho said. “But it doesn’t pay. The risk is too great.”

Union Pacific engineer Jim McInerney, who piloted the Trooper Special, knows the dangers all too well. Several years ago in the City of Industry, he struck a car that bolted in front of his engine, killing the driver and her two sons.

“Once that happens you never forget it. It takes a locomotive going 55 m.p.h. nearly a mile and a half to stop. But people don’t think that way,” said McInerney, who spends his off hours lecturing schoolchildren about the dangers of playing near rail lines. He is a volunteer for Operation Lifesaver, a non-profit organization funded by the nation’s largest rail companies to reduce accidents at highway crossings.

Since the group’s creation a decade ago, the number of accidents along California’s 6,500 miles of rail lines has dropped from about 650 a year to 300. But the number of fatalities statewide has grown recently, from 34 in 1988 to 44 last year. About a quarter of those fatalities in 1989 occurred in Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

Accident figures do not include the countless times motorists grow weary of waiting and simply plow through crossing gates. In recent years, rail companies have begun installing aluminum “breakaway” gates to cut down on replacement costs.

But at major intersections, like Bandini and Downey avenues in Vernon, repairing even the newer-model gates is expensive. Union Pacific spent $63,000 on gates last year at that crossing alone.

The intersection is near a switching yard, and trucker Todd Watkins said the crossing is blocked frequently.

“I’ve seen guys just barrel into those gates,” Watkins said. “They can’t afford to wait. Time is money.”

But Tom Lenert, a Santa Fe Railroad safety expert and regional chief of Operation Lifesaver, said running a crossing is dangerous.

“When you tangle with 11,000 tons of steel, no matter how slow it’s going, there is going to be some serious damage,” he said. “I’ve seen cars busted into tiny pieces when hit by a locomotive.”

Yet rail officials say the hurry-up lifestyle of many people tempts them to test their timing--and nerves--and dart through a rail crossing rather than wait for a train to pass.

It was no different Friday at the Otis Street crossing on the Bell-Cudahy border. As the Union Pacific engine, traveling 15 m.p.h., approached the two-lane road a steady stream of vehicles crossed the tracks despite the flashing lights.

Camacho had a field day, barking out descriptions over the radio of the offending cars and trucks. As the locomotive chugged past the crossing, a handful of officers were off to the side issuing citations to a half-dozen motorists.

“Like little kids who play chicken on the tracks, those drivers do the same thing,” Camacho said. “They like to see how close they can cut it. Today, they were lucky. All they got was a ticket. Next time they might get the front end of this engine.”