U.S. Safety Agencies Appear Stalled Again in 18-Year Drive for Rail-Crossing Rule

For 18 years, regulators have been wrestling with a congressional mandate to issue a rule prohibiting trucks from proceeding into railroad crossings unless there is adequate space on the other side to avoid getting trapped on the tracks.

The need for such a requirement might seem obvious, but a move to create such a rule appears once again to be fading in Washington.

The latest installment — a January 2011 proposed joint rule of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration — appears to be stalled at the agencies.

The comment period on the proposed regulation ended in May 2011, but the agencies have yet to take any action.

Last week, spokeswomen for PHMSA and FMCSA told Transport Topics that the rule is needed to “provide clear guidance.” The new regulation suggests that it can be difficult for trucks to cross a track safely if there is less than 100 feet of clearance between the track and a stop sign or stoplight.

The January 2011 proposal is straightforward: “A driver of a commercial motor vehicle shall not drive onto a railroad grade crossing without having sufficient space to drive completely through the crossing without stopping,” it reads in part.

“The consequences of a motor vehicle failing to clear the tracks at a grade crossing are potentially serious, particularly if a vehicle or train is transporting hazardous materials or passengers,” FMCSA said.

Before 2011, the most recent attempt to issue a so-called “clear storage space” proposal was withdrawn in 2006 because it had “created a great deal of misunderstanding and should be terminated,” according to FMCSA. That misunderstanding was mostly with the states, which mistakenly thought the new regulation would require them to “reconstruct, rewire, reroute or otherwise correct every inadequate crossing,” FMCSA said.

Nearly all of the stakeholders that would be affected by the rule have said they generally support the idea, but they also have concerns.

For example, truckers and shippers said truck drivers can’t be expected to anticipate if there’s enough space to cross a railroad track before stopping for a traffic light or stop sign, nor do they have any control over a passenger vehicle that suddenly darts in front of them at the last moment.

“At the end of the day, it’s very difficult to regulate and almost impossible to enforce,” said Boyd Stephenson manager of safety and security operations for American Trucking Associations. “I do not think that this is a front-burner issue for the agencies. They just have so many other priorities.”

Stakeholders also complained that the rule could require major rerouting efforts because a large number of poorly designed railroad crossings don’t have enough space to allow trucks stay off the tracks for a stop sign or traffic light on the other side of the tracks.

For instance, the National Association of Chemical Distributors said its members would have to reroute trucks that pass through a total of 21,000 crossings.

Law enforcement representatives complain that the requirement would be tough to enforce and would take time away from more significant enforcement activities.

“The proposed rule appears to be too inflexible and overly stringent,” the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance said in written comments. “As a result, an undue burden will be placed on enforcement entities. Enforcement will be required to determine the right course of action, to cite or not to cite, regarding each occurrence.”

Some state officials also weighed in on the rule.

Nebraska’s Department of Roads said the rule would be costly because it would require redesign of some dangerous railroad crossings, and state officials in California said that enforcement of a clearance rule would be “impractical and unlikely to occur.”

“In some cases, there may be no alternate route,” the California Public Utilities Commission said in written comments. “In other cases, the trucks would need to determine their route based primarily on the location of intersections with traffic signals, which may result in the trucks being routed from a rural area, with clear sightlines and few vehicles, to a developed area, which is likely to be more congested and potentially more hazardous.”

The incidence of trucks getting hit by trains is a relatively rare occurrence, but the two agencies said that when a mishap occurs, it can have devastating effects in terms of lost lives, injuries and cost.

From 1998 to 2005, more than 26,000 crashes involved all types of vehicles at the nation’s 145,000 public, at grade, open highway-rail crossings, federal regulators said. More than 14% of those crossings are considered high risk.

The proposed rule said the average cost of a train derailment is more than $427,000, but when a train hits a truck, the average damages total more than $1.3 million.