The posters who believe that the NYTimes was somehow inaccurate miss the fact that Mr. Davidson admitted (if you read his statement carefully) that the Times article was accurate. Of course, Mr. Davidson’s “rebuttal” to the article implies that it is inaccurate, but the words he actually uses admit otherwise. Mr. Davidson’s slimy, disingenous, mendacious statement is a fine example of the publicist’s art.
It may be that grade crossing accidents have become less common. It may be that many or most are the fault of drivers who don’t pay attention.But the admitted facts that in at least some cases UP refused to fix defective signals, didn’t bother to cut view-obstructing brush, and tried to lie and cover up when caught, make the management’s behavior absolutely despicable. You’d think that Mr. Davidson might have the humility to actually APOLOGIZE for his company’s behavior, and for his company’s behavior causing the death and maiming of innocent people, but no, he tries to weasel his way around and between the facts, meanwhile collecting untold millions in bonuses from the UP.
In southern Calif., the UP has replaced and upgraded many crossing signals on its former-SP/PE branch lines. I do think they take the grade crossing risk seriously.