
Tech companies ignore pleas on rail safety - Svip
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/10/tech-rail-safety-1412324
======
crazygringo
I'm so confused. How on earth is a maps app having railroad crossing markings
going to save lives?

A driver needs to stop at a railroad crossing just like they do at a red light
or stop sign. If a driver is ignoring _any_ of these, I really don't see how
an app is going to help.

Or conversely, if a crossing is somehow not well-marked on the road then
that's deep negligence on the part of the transportation department and it
needs to be fixed -- it has nothing to do with apps. (All the crossings I know
have a closed gate and flashing lights, although I understand this might vary
locally.)

~~~
why-el
I think there is a middle ground. Apps could announce the upcoming railroad
crossing just like they do with a left/right turn. Somewhat of a silly
example, but if there is a river at the end of a road and your only option is
a left or a right, the app will not help stop you for driving the car into the
river, but the instruction to go right or left does (albeit accidentally) help
you avoid that. I don't see why it won't do the same with rail crossings.

Although you should focus on road signs more than you do the app, there could
be a dangerous situation in which the app says "make a left turn at the
light", but before reaching the light there is a railroad crossing. _Of
course_ you need to stop at that, but the app can enhance the situation but
treating it like another instruction. I see no problem here but an overall
safety enhancement.

~~~
bskap
Ok, but why do that for railroad crossings and not any other type of dangerous
crossing? Should we have these apps announce every stop sign, traffic light,
and uncontrolled intersection you travel through for safety reasons?

~~~
Arnt
The list is much longer. You're driving past a kindergarten; watch out for
children. You're driving past a school. You're approaching an area with many
users logged into Google so watch out for pedestrians. You're crossing a
bridge. You're passing a point with an unusually large number of accidents in
the past.

If that isn't to become some sort of text-to-speech database dump about the
area, there has to be a good theory of the conditions for what's worthwhile.
And I sense that the natural conditions are the same as the conditions for
putting up warning signs, reducing the speed limit, etc.

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maxerickson
Many of these got added to OpenStreetMap at that time. OSMAnd will announce
them, the last time (years ago) I used it while driving over some the
implementation left a bit to be desired, it announced them about 10 times.

Here's a quick query visualizing just how many there are:

[http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/Ls7](http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/Ls7)

(move the map and click "Run" to look at other areas)

I think the FRA data includes information about what type of control each
crossing has. It wouldn't be a huge project to highlight the less controlled
crossings that are on higher speed and higher traffic routes.

~~~
maxerickson
Here's the FRA's interactive map:

[https://fragis.fra.dot.gov/GISFRASafety/](https://fragis.fra.dot.gov/GISFRASafety/)

They have extended information about the crossings.

------
jws
Strange article. It assumes that somehow having rail crossings marked on
navigation systems would reduce motor vehicle to train accidents, if only the
tech companies would implement it.

Do drivers really watch their maps to see upcoming hazards? I just glance once
in a while to see how far until my next turn and which direction it will be.

~~~
groundlogic
I could certainly imagine that if e.g. Waze warned about railroad crossings
that it could prevent some small percentage of almost sleeping
drivers/truckers getting hit.

It's a numbers game. 999/1000 will be watching just fine without a warning
from their navigation app; that warning might bring awareness to 999.8/1000 or
so. Or something like that. That could result in a pretty dramatic decrease of
accidents.

This seems like a no-brainer to me - they should add a (visual) warning about
this.

~~~
Arnt
Is there a visual warning already? Like this for example (from Germany)?

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/Bl...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/Blinklicht_mit_Halbschranke%2C_BO_1961.svg/800px-
Blinklicht_mit_Halbschranke%2C_BO_1961.svg.png)

~~~
groundlogic
Sure, there are obviously visual warnings in real life, like that. Pretty sure
that kind of thing is universal.

I'm talking about something that would pop on the Waze display, like 20
seconds ahead of reaching the crossing.

~~~
Arnt
Why would this be an improvement?

It encourages taking drivers' eyes off the road. Can you offer an argument
that its value is such that that's a net improvement?

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JustSomeNobody
> Adding information on railroad crossings to mobile apps would “provide road
> users with additional safety cues and ... reduce the likelihood of crashes,”
> the NTSB wrote...

I know this is going to sound like victim blaming, but are RR crossings really
_that_ hard to see? Surely the apps are not the problem, but maybe from the
people racing the train and losing? And I get that _some_ crossings might be
hard to see until you're right there, but how is this tech's problem and not
an infrastructure problem? IOW, if I wasn't using a maps app with added
information, I would be in _more_ danger, so why doesn't infrastructure fix
it?

~~~
AJ007
There is no shortage of videos of people in cars pulling in front of visible
trains. Drivers stop over rail tracks all of the time. Frequently pedestrians
hit by trains, excluding suicides, have earphones in.

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marcinzm
For reference, this is the crash referenced by the article:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Oxnard_train_derailment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Oxnard_train_derailment)

Apparently a driver drove onto the railroad tracks after confusing them with a
road at night.

~~~
tialaramex
> Funding, however, remained unavailable in Ventura County for the estimated
> $35 million grade separation project.

That's the key line in that article. Adding it to Google Maps doesn't fix
this. Putting up a sign that says "No idiot, don't turn here" doesn't fix
this. Better driver training doesn't fix this. Better working time rules (the
driver was "severely fatigued") doesn't fix this.

Grade separation fixes this.

~~~
ApolloFortyNine
According to the Bureau of Transportation, there are 211,631 at grade
crossings in the US [1]. At $35 million a crossing, that's $7.4 trillion.

[1] [https://www.bts.gov/content/highway-rail-grade-crossings-
typ...](https://www.bts.gov/content/highway-rail-grade-crossings-type)

------
envy2
I understand the motivation behind the NTSB recommendation, but think I net
out siding with the app developers here. The last time I checked, the
overwhelming majority of active at-grade rail crossings are well-marked (and
usually controlled by lights/gates in populated areas). Adding potentially
confusing clutter to apps feels like it may in fact _compound_ the problem if
people mistake the tracks for roads/intersections.

Obviously, if apps are routing people down rail tracks, that's a big problem,
but it doesn't seem to have been what happened here. Expecting developers to
try to solve for every possible dumb human scenario doesn't end well.

------
nesadi
Do US railway crossings not have clear markings and raisable barriers? I find
it hard to have sympathy for people who drive across railway crossing without
actually looking at the road while driving a dangerous vehicle like a car.

~~~
Svip
Some of it is people driving down the railway track. It may be confusing at
night (all the incidents I could find mentioned in the bottom happened at
night), particularly if there is a road junction immediately following the
railway crossing, that you were supposed to turn on. Then an indicator to
'cross the railway, and then turn right' would be nice.

Although, I wonder whether US railway crossings can be hard to see at night.

~~~
mhandley
Old-style railway crossings often included gates that closed across the tracks
to prevent this happening.
[http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3VF4hWvjC3g/maxresdefault.jpg](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3VF4hWvjC3g/maxresdefault.jpg)

Is it really that hard for the railways to fix this problem with better modern
automated gates?

~~~
Svip
I've only seen those kinds of gates in Europe. Mind, I have not seen all US
railway crossings, but I have seen a few, and none of them had gates like
that. Plus, I think there is too little money in the railway network's budget
to implement those gates, so asking navigation apps to do it for them is the
cheap option.

~~~
aaronmgdr
Most of the ones I have seen have gates

(I'm in the US)

~~~
kd5bjo
US rail crossing gates tend to move vertically, and there’s never a barrier
that crosses the tracks, only the road. Sometimes, they only block the road in
the direction of travel which leaves an easy path for drivers to go around the
gates if they’re feeling impatient.

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creato
How often does this happen? Not all 270 railroad crossing deaths are similar
to the specific accident mentioned caused by confusing a railroad crossing
with a road.

At the same time, there must be billions of railroad crossings by vehicles
every year. If map apps do anything to announce/mention railroad crossings, I
would expect there to be some number of people that make this mistake
_because_ of confusion about the announcement/indication instead of preventing
it.

------
rplst8
How about people just pay more attention when they drive their 3000 lbs hunk
of murder metal?

------
mschuster91
Putting info about railroad crossing into maps is _bad_ , period.

People must be forced to look on the damn road instead of putting everything
including speed limits in their navigation system - I would actually _outlaw_
displaying everything that can be seen with your eyes in navigation apps.

Otherwise such stories or "tin can opener bridges" are not ever going to
disappear. If you're wondering about the bridge:
[https://youtu.be/u_9rWH0p43A](https://youtu.be/u_9rWH0p43A)

There are literally flashing lights and a direction "OVERHEIGHT" blinking, and
people are too focused on their navs/phones to notice it.

~~~
ghaff
In all fairness, in Boston/Cambridge, students have been ripping open the top
of rental trucks on Storrow and Memorial Drives since long before there were
navs/phones. (Admittedly, the warnings didn't used to be as prominent as they
are today.)

