Some states (PA for one) have maps available that show such information. Granted, it’s not electronic/part of a GPS, but a stop at a “welcome center” will provide one with such a map if you’re high/wide.
Keeping such a database up to date would be a challenge, but the maps apps on my phone and my tablet update on a fairly regular basis. It’s not a reach to suggest that the owner of a GPS do so occasionally as well.
It would not be difficult to include WiFi in a GPS (if they don’t already). With that, parking your car in your garage, or stopping at a truck stop with free WiFi would allow updates almost constantly.
As mentioned, real-time interfaces would be problematic.
PV
So the reason that people pass the ringing bell and flashing lights then drive around the lowered gate is that they don’t realize it is a railroad crossing?
More like they don’t think it applies to them…
Right; they think they are faster than any old train.
So, I’m traveling on the road parallel to the tracks, I’m not planning to cross them, every time I get close to a crossing I’ll get “CAUTION, RAILROAD CROSSING 500 ft”, great, where’s my wire cutters.
So you think a “verbal suggestion” from their GPS would help people understand what the lights, and bell, and barrier gate, and an air horn on the train that is loud enough to sterilize cats, mean?
I would hope that would be a variable they would consider when tweaking the program. You should only get the warning if the GPS is going to instruct you to turn onto a street/road that will cross the tracks. As you infer, repeated warnings of that nature will soon be ignored.
Along that line, however, situations such as brought on the recent incident in California might be programmed to say “Turn right in 500 feet. Do not turn onto railroad tracks.”
I see the primary benefit of a system like this (whether integrated in the radio or provided in the GPS interface somewhere) as coming at ungated or even unsigned (and private) crossings. Particularly when there is limited sight distance either for the driver or the train crew, or poor weather conditions.
Secondary benefit is for first responders, who need to have reliable information about routing or blocked crossings, preferably 100% integrated with a means that gives them minimum-time routing to a critical destination.
If I were going to design this capability into a GPS, I would put two controls into the interface: the distance from a crossing that the system uses for an alert (probably similar in implementation to geofencing) and a means of configuring the actual alert or warning the system gives (as opposed to how the system recognizes and tracks crossing locations and train information, and uses that to aid routing and guiding).
Y’all seem to think that the user interface would be programeed by crApple or one of those consulting firms in Bangalore, warning you about crossings, or telling you to turn right across a crossing and then a few moments later changing its mind to turn left and then exclaiming “Train! Train! Train!” to destroy any equanimity you might have left after the induced confusion. It doesn’t need to be that way.
For example, the ‘first best use’ of crossing information comes as part of normal (sensible, not crApple) voice navigation. Remember the people who get confused when making crossings from parallel roads onto parallel roads on the other side? The system now says something like "In three-quarters of a mile, turn left on Wa
My wife described a situation from the other day possibly involving GPS that could have resulted in a major accident. A driver was proceeding quite slowly in the left-hand lane of a major arterial street so she passed on the right. Immediately after she passed, the other driver made a sudden right turn onto a side street. Fortunately, there were no other cars immediately following. My wife guessed that the driver was unfamiliar with the area and overly dependent on GPS instructions.
Basically, this proposal seeks to make technology applications from Google an integral part of the grade crossing warning system. For instance a warning about the presence of a non-signalized crossing in bad weather, low visibility conditions becomes a practical component of the warning system. That means that the Google warning must be as reliable and “failsafe” as the state of the art for signalized crossing warning systems.
Sarah Feinberg would probably say that if the Google warning is reliable 75% of the time, that is better than nothing. But, what she may not realize is that when a safety device fails, it ADDS danger because of the habitual driver reliance on that safety feature.
Recently, there has been a quest for ways to improve safety at non-signalized crossing with a method that is lower cost than adding a full signal safety system. So this has spawned ideas such as reflectorized wheels that spin in the wind, for instance. But sometimes the wind is not blowing, or the reflectors might be covered by snow.
The superficial way of looking at this problem is that when the device is working it adds safety, and every bit of added safety helps. However the MUTCD recognizes that the failure a supplemental warning device ac
I agree with most of what Wizlish said, until I got to the:
I think the responsibility lies with the one with their hands on the steering-wheel and foot on the gas pedal.
I am not saying that the designers/programmers should be allowed to be lackadaisical about what they produce, (and I have worked with some programmers that would only chuckle if their program caused any sort of problem), but the responsibility lies with the user to not allow the system to kill them.
In Mayberry perhaps. Our main downtown library was remodeled a couple of years ago to add a bunch more computers and a bunch more loung chairs for the homeless people to occupy during the day. Somehow I don’t feel those upgrades raised the general IQ of the world. [sigh]
Perhaps a warning should be added after a direction to turn left: “Do not turn right from the left lane”? Of course, that is one of the basic points made when you are being taught how to drive safely.
Again, the driver may have been totally unfamiliar with the area and was relying on sight and was expecting to turn left after finding the desired street.
Once, I was stopped for driving in the left lane, at the speed limit; I told the policeman that I was looking for a street on the left–he let me go. He had not stopped the people who were passing me on the right.
i-Zombies be i-Zombies. The dumb button pushers ought to be banned from using any electronic devices in a moving vehicle whilst behind the wheel. (A mobile GPS/GIS Garmin unit was blamed by the the driver as the cause of distraction in the recent draw bridge incident. The GIS unit was at fault?[D)] aw, cmon…)