U.S. Rail Agency’s Investigations of Train-Vehicle Crashes Called Flawed

The federal agency overseeing rail safety has been too lax in investigating train accidents and too often lets railroads blame motorists for crashes, according to a new report by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s inspector general.

The report on the Federal Railroad Administration, released Thursday, lends credence to the complaints of transportation experts and victims’ families that railroads and others aren’t taking responsibility for accidents, even when they’re at fault.

“This is a wake-up call for the FRA,” said USC engineering professor Najmedin Meshkati, an expert on transportation safety. He cited as an example a 2003 Metrolink crash in Burbank in which local authorities blamed truck driver Jacek “Jack” Wysocki.

The Federal Railroad Administration did not challenge that finding. But the National Transportation Safety Board later did, concluding that Wysocki had encountered confusing traffic signals at the Buena Vista Street crossing.

The inspector general called on the federal rail agency to conduct more independent reviews of crashes and to do a better job in getting railroads to report fatal accidents immediately.

Across the nation, rail-crossing accidents and fatalities mostly have been declining. In California, train crashes involving cars fell from 200 in 1995 to 154 last year. But the federal rail agency could do a lot more to improve safety, and investigating accidents thoroughly would help, the report said.

Between 2000 and 2004, railroads blamed motorists for more than 90% of crashes, and the Federal Railroad Administration generally accepted the companies’ claims, the report found. The agency did little independent verification and routinely failed to review police reports, locomotive event-recorder data and other information, the inspector general found.

Over the same period, even when the agency found “critical safety defects” in rail-crossing equipment, it failed to issue fines in 95% of cases, the report said.

Railroads allegedly did their part to hamper the agency’s work. Between May 2003 and December 2004, railroads failed to promptly report 21% of serious accidents, which impeded investigations, the report found.

Also, of the more than 3,000 crashes at rail crossings in 2004, the federal rail agency investigated only nine, leaving the rest to local and state authorities. The agency also failed to investigate 329 of the “most serious” rail accidents between 2000 and 2004, according to the report.

“Accidents are going uninvestigated,” said Jim Berard, a spokesman for the ranking Democrat on the House Transportation Committee, Rep. James L. Oberstar of Minnesota, who called for a federal investigation. “The agency really needs to make significant improvements in how it oversees safety at rail crossings.”

The railroad agency’s chief, Joseph H. Boardman, said he agreed with the report’s assessment. He said the federal agency, which he took over six months ago, has already adopted some reforms.

For example, it has implemented a new “cross-checking” procedure to help ensure that all rail accidents are being reported, Boardman said.

Rail safety, he added, is “something we constantly need to improve, to regulate railroads more strictly.”

Iwona Wysocki, the daughter-in-law of the truck driver killed in the January 2003 Burbank crash, said she hoped the report would prompt authorities to investigate rail accidents more thoroughly before pointing fingers.

“The intersection where Jack died is a very confusing intersection,” Wysocki said. “He was not at fault ... but the first thing they did was blame the driver.”