Should you stop at railroad crossings, even if not required by law?

I was curious to know how experienced truck drivers feel about the idea of stopping at railroad crossings even if not required by law. For example, if your not carrying hazmat. I used to not think that much about crossing a railroad crossing (I live next door to one and cross it nearly 10 times per day), but after seeing this video (), I don't feed safe just "crossing" one without stopping or at least slowing down considerably first.

I'm actually really confused with how this happened in the first place. I've done a lot of research on how railroad crossings work and can't think of one reason why this could happen. There's a current that constantly flows between the rails. The interruption of this current by... pretty much anything will cause it to activate. A train's wheel, a lightning strike, a damaged gate... You could probably snap one of the wires with hedge clippers and it would still activate.

But anyway, knowing that it's possible for all of these safety features to fail... somehow... I feel like you probably should stop. What do you think?

 

Thanks for the replies. This is really helpful advice.

 

To be fair, where I live, I constantly almost get hit by someone making an illegal left turn at a red light. In fact once when taking my sister home from the movies, at literally every intersection I almost got hit and at each, the other person made a left turn on red (which isn't even allowed in countries where you drive on the left). I blew my hown each time, but they just ignored me. Driving in PA sucks.