Derailed Safety Rules

Months might pass before the National Transportation Safety Board reports its final conclusions on last week’s train-truck accident that killed 11 people and injured more than 100 in Illinois. The train struck a truck hauling steel girders at a crossing and ran off the track. Enough is known now to raise many issues that must be addressed by federal investigators and acted on by lawmakers.

Take railroad crossings. The standard gates and flashing-light warning signals were in place at the scene. They were operating properly even after the accident. The crossing system had been thoroughly inspected less than one month ago. But questions remain.

There might have been a persuasive reason, years ago, to fashion crossing gates so that they cover only the traffic lanes before them. That placement should be revisited. Investigators have already determined that even a very large truck could maneuver between the gates of the fatal crossing without touching them.

Crossing lights are another problem. Sensors along the track are activated by the trains and trigger the crossing lights. In this case, according to crossing requirements, that happened when the train, traveling almost 80 mph, was still more than half a mile from the intersection. By the time the gates came down five seconds later, the train had covered nearly the length of two football fields. The crossing lay just 21 seconds away, too late for a motorist to recover from a stupid mistake.

It’s right to question too why this trucker was on the road in the first place. The driver, who has retreated into silence after hiring a lawyer, was driving with a probationary license after receiving three speeding tickets in 1997. Since 1993 his total was seven. Nonetheless he passed two safety courses to keep driving trucks in Illinois and Indiana.

A lot of the problem lies with oversight. In these unregulated times, there are 490,000 trucking businesses and more than 6 million drivers nationwide. The federal agency charged with tracking accidents, finding problems and reducing fatalities is not even remotely capable of fulfilling its mandate. It’s the Office of Motor Carriers, and it can’t begin to target truck carriers with the worst safety records because its own records are both incomplete and inaccurate. To their collective discredit, states give statistics to the federal office that are incomplete, improperly recorded or too convoluted to be of use.

A final determination on the cause of the nation’s worst train accident in six years might be months away, but the search for answers to these questions should begin right now.