Crossing the Line : Crackdown Targets Drivers Who Ignore Safety Rules

Bells rang, lights flashed and an ear-splitting horn sounded, but the well-dressed woman in the yellow-and-tan Cadillac Eldorado still thought she could scoot under the railroad crossing gate as it descended.

She made it past the barrier--barely. She made it past the train. She did not make it past Officer Harold Chilstrom of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. He pulled her over and issued her a $71 ticket.

Thirteen other drivers also were cited for train-safety violations during Friday morning’s commute as a dozen officers from four law enforcement agencies fanned out along the Metro Rail Blue Line in a high-profile crackdown on drivers who ignore laws and common sense at trolley crossings.

“Believe it or not,” said James McInerney, a railroad safety specialist for the federal Department of Transportation, “we need to educate people that when the gates come down, it means a train is coming and if they go around the gate they’re going to get hit.”

Four drivers have been killed and one seriously injured in at least 36 collisions with the Long Beach-to-Los Angeles Blue Line trolley since it began running last July. Most accidents have been blamed on motorists who either drove around lighted crossing gates or made illegal turns in front of trains.

For most of its 22 miles, the Blue Line runs on elevated track. In some areas, the trolley crosses streets; at these intersections, automobile traffic is stopped by crossing gates as trolleys pass. At both ends of the line, trolleys share streets with autos; left turns are restricted in these areas.

To try to reduce the number of accidents, which also have plagued similar light-rail lines in other cities from San Diego to Sacramento, the Rapid Transit District has improved equipment and public education programs.

Single, high-power “Cyclops” lights have been installed at both ends of each of the 54 Blue Line trains at a cost of $532,000.

Part of the problem, said RTD General Manager Alan F. Pegg, is that the Blue Line follows the path of Southern Pacific freight trains that have operated at slow speeds and infrequently for years.

“People have become used to driving in front of those trains,” he said. “But things have changed. The (Blue Line) trains that run out there now run at 55 m.p.h., and they run quietly. . . . We have to change a generation of habit.”

To bolster the educational effort, the RTD and law enforcement agencies also chose to emphasize the continuing program of monitoring intersections and ticketing drivers who cross illegally.

On Friday, representatives from the four agencies that patrol along the line--the Sheriff’s Department and police from Los Angeles, Long Beach and Compton--took turns in the cab of one Blue Line trolley.

The one-day, one-train publicity program, known as “Trooper on the Train,” included a supervisor on the trolley radioing officers in cars and on motorcycles, who moved in to write tickets.

Other officers, such as Chilstrom, worked on regular Blue Line patrols that were independent of the one-day crackdown. Chilstrom positioned himself on 114th Street in Watts, where he could watch two gated intersections.

After watching several drivers stop on the tracks after a traffic signal turned red, he said: “I don’t cite people like that; I warn them.” It is illegal to stop within 7 1/2 feet of a railroad track, he said.

“I cite people who drive around the gate after lights start flashing and the gate starts coming down.” With that, he was off pursuing the woman in the Cadillac.

“She said she didn’t see it,” the officer said after issuing the ticket. “She was really the last of about five cars to go through (after the warning lights started flashing). I could understand the others, because I know there’s a lag before you can react. But she . . . really pushed it. I thought she was going to get hit by the arm as it came down.”