Female Driver Injured at Dangerous, Unguarded KCS Crossing Receives Ticket
(Bossier City, Louisiana – August 23, 2012)
Proving that Louisiana’s railroads have accomplished their goal of “educating” Pelican State law enforcement officers that motorists are always in the wrong and trains can do no wrong, an unidentified female driver was awarded with both a trip to a Shreveport, LA hospital and a traffic ticket after her Suzuki SU-7 SUV was heavily damaged in a collision with a Kansas City Southern freight train at the dangerous, unguarded crossing of Beverly Street and KCS railroad tracks in Bossier City, LA at about 2:30 P.M. Thursday afternoon.
The victim, who was the only occupant of the vehicle, was taken to Christus-Schumpert Main Hospital in Shreveport, LA with head injuries, but not before Bossier City Police officers wrote her a citation for “failure to yield.”
The Beverly Street/KCS crossing is “protected” solely with a pair of standard, passive railroad crossbuck signs, lacking any active protection like flashing lights, bells or crossing gates whatsoever, thus ignoring the railroad industry’s own figures that show the presence of such active protection can prevent over 90% of all train/highway vehicular accidents.
Although an average of 10 trains traverse the crossing daily at speeds of up to 49 mph, the train in this case was traveling only at 10 mph when it struck the SUV’s rear quarter panel on the passenger side.
Ironically, a similar collision occurred at the same crossing on August 18, 2011, almost exactly a year ago.
