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

Another place where you can see this principle of weight is with pickups. My father always when winter storms were forecast put around 15 cement blocks in the bed of his pickup near the tailgate. Just helped keep the tires engaged and the truck drove better in the snow.

 

Slow enough to stop if you needed to stop.

 

Hammer down all the way. Some tracks I cross regularly are so bumpy that I raise my arms and it feels like a roller coaster ride as I bounce over them.

 

4.5 miles here to the closest tracks. I also can here the horn when they roll through town. On a really still cold night, i can hear the faint rumble of the tracks from inside my house. It helps that its kinda flat from here, 4.5 miles to the track.

 

Did anyone note that the lights and gates failed to trigger? Then after the collision, they trigger.

 

I once “trained” with a guy hauling FUEL that didn’t stop at a number of RR crossings in town because he said he’s “never seen train come through here!” He also did California stops when he did come to one and smoked in the truck. This is hazmat fuel hauling I’m talking here. Not all of us are professionals, some of us are super duper truckers I guess. Yikes!

 

I stop if I can see a train within a few hundred feet headed straight at me. Otherwise not.

 

I like to stop so I can lay a few coins on the rails and collect them after my delivery for my kids. Toddlers love those.

 

Are you guys not aware they changed the railroad crossing regs a few years ago? The hazmat is pretty much the same as it was but for the rest of us we need to be going slow enough to stop if we need to stop (before crossing the tracks). You can lose your license for 90 days violating these regs, they are very important to know.

 

Yeah, saw that. Lucky for the driver it is on video and the video appears to be from a police vehicle (you can see the push bar). Although that doesn't necessarily completely exonerate the truck driver (could the driver have seen the train and, regardless of the crossing warning system, the driver has an obligation to yield to the train/not cross the tracks if unsafe to do so, etc.), it goes along way in his defence.