Vitter says he may propose cameras at railroad crossings
By The Associated Press
HAMMOND – Installing cameras at railroad crossings could improve safety by making some drivers more careful and providing evidence for tickets against those who try to beat trains across the tracks, says U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La.
He said cameras are among ideas being considered for a new railway safety reauthorization bill to be introduced later this year in Congress. Other possible changes include ways to step up enforcement and reduce the number of crossings, he said, without giving examples.
Seven of Louisiana’s 15 railroad crossing deaths this year have been in Tangipahoa Parish, with an eighth in nearby Livingston Parish.
“We’re looking at all those sorts of ideas to try to minimize these (deaths) in the future,” Vitter said.
Money from the tickets could be used for crossing safety improvements, he said.
Federal funding for crossing safety in Louisiana has remained flat since the mid-1980s at about $3.5 million.
The federal bill comes in addition to state legislation that would give the state Department of Transportation and Development the power to force parishes to spend their state highway dollars on safety improvements to crossings that DOTD has recommended be closed.
Vitter said the federal reauthorization and its “tweaks” would be introduced during the next month.
He said greater enforcement and a reduction in the number of crossings were needed "when you have folks who are actually getting around the barriers and the arms at the intersection and are killed.
Let’s just do it. And persuade the justice system to accept the resulting photos. It’s simple, relatively inexpensive. The usual defense for such cameras (But judge, it was my cousin Harvey; he’d taken my car!) shouldn’t be allowed!
But then… I like red-light cameras and speed cameras… and I don’t much care for folks who seem to think that traffic laws don’t apply to them, in general. Which makes me a bit strange, I guess.
We’ve been testing these for a couple of years now. Preliminary results seem to indicate that they do reduce the number of habitual offendors and generate a nice revenue stream as well. Pity that this revenue just goes into the general fund snd not towards improving level crossing safety.
Hugh – I was recently driving around the Edinburgh/Lothian area; there are a number of red light and speed cameras in that area, and it seemed to me they were having a real positive effect on driver behaviour. I think they’re great! But then, believe it or not, your drivers are considerably better behaved than North American ones anyway…
Not strange to me. I totaly agree with you. Around here people think the more expensive there car is the less the laws apply to them. I laugh at em’ every time I see them get in wrecks with eachother for doing stupid things cause they think they own the road.(the non injury wrecks that is)
Nebraskan’s and Iowan’s are the same way. Oh hell,you should see just how they drive on I-80. Oh my God! It’s a wounder why there arn’t Dead body’s floating on the side of Road yet.
Can’t answer the specific question, which I presume is about the Blue Line, but:
How much good crossing cameras do is hard to measure except by comparing it to how things were before they were installed. If the line has always had the cameras, there is no baseline.
It’s kind of like teaching kids fire prevention. If you do it right, you’ll never know whether you were successful or not, since the fires and fire-caused casualties won’t be happening. Every now and again you hear about something someone does that gets credited to what they learned, but…