Tennessee Motorist Critically Injured at Non-Gated CSX Crossing
(Greenbrier, Tennessee November 2, 2016)
A 40-year-old female driver was airlifted to Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville, TN early Wednesday morning at about 5:00 A.M. after she tried to drive across CSX railroad tracks at the dangerous and non-gated crossing of Wilson Street in Greenbrier, TN. She was struck and dragged over 1,800 feet by one of the daily average 28 CSX freight trains that cross there at a maximum allowable speed of 50 mph.
Misty Knight Dishman, a resident of Springfield, TN, was listed in critical condition upon admission to the hospital after the crossing collision. The Wilson Street/CSX crossing, which has no crossing gates, has now been the site of four train/highway vehicle collisions, with the lone injury suffered being Wednesday mornings crash.
According to the local Smokey Barn News newspaper, the Wilson Street crossing was among the CSX crossings in Greenbrier that were inspected by the city, the railroad and Tennessee DOT earlier this year, with risk analyses given each road/rail intersection. However, it was determined to have insufficient criteria to qualify for the installation of gates and improvement of the current incandescent signal lights to larger, more easily seen 12 LED flashing signals. Sadly, this decision has had devastating consequences, as studies have shown the addition of automatic gates to lights only crossings can reduce collisions by up to two-thirds.
