Ron’s Rant #2: Anytime is train time!
I was taking a course on safe signage for road workers in the 90’s sponsored by the Provincial Highways Ministry. The session leader made a statement that stuck with me: “You don’t want to surprise a driver; you cannot predict how they might behave.”
I am attending a conference in Manitoba next month and looked for a recent mishap to add to my booth display, et voila. The photo credit goes to Portage online Newspaper. It looks like a truck that was struck by a train near Portage La Prairie in Manitoba last month and the vehicle appears to have lost its second trailer unit to the train collision. I must admit to knowing nothing about the circumstances of this accident but wonder what type of driver was operating this multi-trailer truck. Were they too aggressive? I bet they were surprised at the train’s arrival and the subsequent collision.
When I was a railway safety inspector for Transport Canada, skipping along from one road crossing to the next all day long, there was one thing that surprised me while I was in the middle of note taking or eating lunch at a crossing; and that was the sudden sound of a train approaching. Even at speeds of 30 to 45 mph these big monsters arrive in a rush and can crush a car the same way a car can crush a pop can. Along with my fear of locking myself out of the running vehicle on a bitterly cold day, it was my relentless nightmare that I might park my vehicle too close to a track or get caught standing too close to a track and be struck by a passing train. Keep your head on a swivel when around tracks is what I always say and if you are doing more than simply crossing the tracks at a crossing, then you need railway worker protection to work around the railway.
In my last article I described three driver types. All these types of drivers can be surprised by the arrival of a train and their behaviours will differ. The root cause of surprised driver having an accident at a crossing may be found in the unpredictability of the human response. We can however generalize using the three types of driver that were identified in last week’s article. For example:
Type A: Aggressive, aka video game drivers. This type of driver is most likely going to attempt to beat the train over the crossing. They are also likely driving too fast for the road and risk sliding into the path of a train if they try to brake at the last second, and they will often choose to speed up to get across in front of the train. I have seen multiple accidents at night where this type of driver runs into the side of a train that is already on the crossing as they race to beat the train that they see on a closer track. Nasty result when they collide with one train and then get struck again by another train. I posted a photo of one such result in an earlier article.
Type B – Average Joe/Joanna. These drivers are still surprised when the train arrives on the approach to a crossing and they will look to see where the train is and, if the geometry and warning systems are up to standard, they should be able to navigate the crossing safely. But that is not always what transpires. Any driver can be distracted and miss something or not see the train hidden in their vehicle blind spots, and by the time they react, it is sometimes too late to stop safely. I have seen too many accidents where I suspect that the driver simply failed to recognize and react appropriately to what was unfolding in front of them. And similar to Type A drivers, they can also be misled in multi-track situations where simultaneous trains lead the driver to fixate on the first train that they see rather than the one that will arrive at the crossing first. That train may be from the opposite direction or by a last moment reveal of an overtaking train hidden from view by a slower train on the nearest track.
Type C – Conservative. This very cautious driver is the type that often gets tail ended when they stop early in the warning cycle perhaps 30 seconds before a train is due to arrive. Bad news for them is that they can be driven into the path of the train (or vehicle intersection) by the force of collision from behind; and they are particularly if the following driver is a video game type that does not want to stop and wait at the crossing.
Trains surprise drivers, which leads to unpredictable behaviour. I repeat the question raised last week. How can we engineer better for this diverse population of drivers that we also know will act unpredictably? Perhaps we need barriers that fight back!
Thanks for reading my rant. Next week’s rant will focus on the way we sometimes use human physiology alone to set standards. I believe that we should also consider the characteristics of the vehicle as part of one system that is integrated with the driver physiology/characteristics. Or maybe we just go to driver-less and let the technology keep two objects from occupying the same space at the same time. That technology may very well have prevented the recent truck mishap in Manitoba. Have a safe week – Safety for Life!
Ron Mitchell