Motorists continue to ignore safety upgrades at railroad crossings

Posted on September 20, 2015
Train
Illinois drivers are not always paying attention to safety devices at rail crossings. (Flickr)

By Terry James

BLOOMINGTON – Many motorists are ignoring safety devices at rail crossings.  Chip Pew with the Illinois Commerce Commission tells WJBC’s Terry James that’s leading to deaths that are completely avoidable.

“There are those people that say if all of our crossings had gates, bells, and lights we’d be safer and yet last year in Illinois 67-percent of all of our collisions occurred at crossings with gates, ” says Pew.

Pew says in many areas people don’t see a lot of trains so as they approach railway crossings, they don’t look for trains.

Nationally, Illinois is second only to Texas in the total number of highway-rail crossings with over 8,400 highway-rail grade crossings.

Terry James can be reached at [email protected].

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