Jasper, Newton counties account for 20 percent of railroad-crossing crashes

October 14, 2008 10:38 pm

— By Wally Kennedy
wkennedy@joplinglobe.com
CARTHAGE, Mo. — If you drive a dark Kia sport utility vehicle or a white S10 Chevrolet Blazer that crossed the railroad tracks at Centennial Street about 2:15 p.m. Tuesday as a train approached, somebody is looking for you.
Someone has something to give you: a personalized ticket for going through a railroad crossing when warning lights were flashing.
“Centennial and Fairview are problem crossings,” said Dusty Hicks, an engineer on the Missouri & Northern Arkansas locomotive.
That information was duly noted by Sgt. Mike Watson with the Missouri State Highway Patrol, who was riding in the locomotive. Watson got on his radio and alerted Carthage police to the Kia and the Blazer.
As he approached Fairview Street, he was back on the radio again, telling police to look for a white Chevrolet Monte Carlo and a white Buick that went through that crossing as the warning lights flashed.
“If those lights are flashing, you must stop. That is the law,” Watson said. “People are in just too much of a hurry.”
Officers, deputies and state troopers will be riding the rails this week in Jasper and Newton counties to ticket motorists who fail to stop at railroad crossings when they should. They are getting full cooperation from the three railroads with tracks in the counties.
Hicks said some motorists obey the law, but many do not, especially at crossings in Joplin.
“I have seen a car go off in the ditch to get around a train near the college (Missouri Southern State University) during the lunch hour,” he said.
Railroads are helping with the enforcement because they know that when it comes to wrecks involving trains and cars, the train wins every time.
Nine law-enforcement agencies are teaming up to conduct the weeklong safety blitz in Jasper and Newton counties. Sixteen crashes were reported at crossings with warning lights and/or gates in the two-county region between October 2006 and September 2008.
These crashes happened despite stepped-up efforts involving driver education in the schools, increased law enforcement, and ongoing improvements to crossings by the Missouri Department of Transportation and the railroads.
Becky Baltz, head of MoDOT’s regional office in Joplin, said: “More than 20 percent of the railroad-crossing crashes in Missouri during the past two years have occurred in either Jasper or Newton counties.
“You would think these are mostly teenagers who were not paying attention. But most of these crashes involved men in their 30s and 40s.”
Rick Mooney, state coordinator of Missouri’s Operation Lifesaver, said three railroad companies — Burlington Northern Santa Fe, Missouri & Northern Arkansas, and Kansas City Southern — operate in the two-county area. Because of that, there is a concentration of crossings in the region compared with other parts of the state.
“There are about 400 public crossings in the two-county area, or about 5 percent of the total number of crossings in the state,” Mooney said.
Officers with local law-enforcement agencies, including those in Joplin, Carthage, Carl Junction, Webb City, Seneca and Neosho, will be riding on trains and writing tickets. Troopers with the state patrol, and deputies with the sheriff’s departments in Jasper and Newton counties also will be stepping up enforcement.
To complement that effort, transportation and railroad-safety officials will be scheduling presentations this week in local communities to raise awareness about railroad-crossing safety in Southwest Missouri.
Capt. Randy Beydler, with the state patrol, said the second- and third-largest railroad terminals in the nation are in Missouri, and that 800 trains pass through the state daily. He said there are 6,800 private and public railroad crossings, and nearly 6,400 miles of track.
Noting the relatively high number of railroad-related accidents in Jasper and Newton counties, Mooney said the effort to educate local motorists about the dangers of railroad crossings hasn’t worked.
“Motorists need to drive defensively when they approach a crossing,” he said. “A motorist is 20 times more likely to be killed in a railroad-crossing accident than a two-vehicle accident.”


Saving lives

Operation Lifesaver, which started about 1976, has helped stem the number of crashes, fatalities and injuries associated with railroad crossings. In 1976, there were 283 crashes in Missouri that involved 42 fatalities and 133 injuries. Last year, there were 48 crashes that involved eight fatalities and 20 injuries, according to Rick Mooney, state coordinator for Missouri’s Operation Lifesaver.

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