Railroad Track Facts

I recently stayed at my mothers house out east and heard the familiar sound of a train at night.

It dawned on me that for most of my life, there have been trains in the background.   With the exception of when we lived in the middle of nowhere, a period of around 8 years, the rest of my 40 plus years I have been able to hear trains in the distance.   In heavily populated urban areas, cities and in the rural areas I have lived, I have always been close to a train.   Actually, most people do around or near train tracks and the railroad crossing is a commonplace and frequent event.

DefensiveDriving.com gets a lot of feedback about what I would consider FAMOUS railroad crossing video (over 70,000 views on YouTube) from our online driver safety course Wheels in Motion and what people cannot understand is it seems obvious.

People cannot believe there is even a need to discuss the obvious, don’t race trains and if your car breaks down, get off the tracks.   The obvious seems really simple, however, the “facts of the tracks” prove something different.   There are still a large number of people who are racing trains to the the crossing, a large number of cars in the tracks with fatalities occur every year.

Consider this… according to the 2011 Federal Railroad Administration statistics, 2004 people were killed in 2010 in accidents involving trains and people.   The states with the highest fatality numbers, Texas, California and Illinois, also contain 6 of the largest cities in the US, it is not a rural issue.

A great resource for more information about railroad and driver safety is OperationLifeSaver.org.

Remember, in a race between you and the train, there is no winner.   Drive safely and stay alive.   Remember, DefensiveDriving.com’s online driver safety programs are for more than just ticket dismissal, they could help save your life.

Here’s the video…