Daily Herald opinion: Rare event, huge risks: Early report on fatal train-truck crash emphasizes need for caution at all crossings

It likely will be months before we know definitively the cause of the fatal Oct. 23 collisions between a pickup truck and a Union Pacific locomotive in Elgin, but the tragedy suggests a warning that drivers should consider even now.

It follows from a curt observation by DePaul University transportation Professor Joseph Schwieterman. “There isn't much margin for error” at so-called at-grade crossings — which is to say, far and away the most common crossing drivers encounter.

One danger in the implementation of generally successful complex technological systems is that we can come to consider them faultless. Sometimes, maybe once in many hundreds of thousands of times, they may not be.

Such is the early conclusion of a preliminary study of the Elgin crash by the National Transportation Safety Board. And that conclusion emphasizes to drivers the need to give special caution to every railroad crossing, however seemingly reliable.

Reflecting on the NTSB report in a story Monday by our Marni Pyke, Martin Oberman, former chair of both the U.S. Surface Transportation Board and Metra, laid out in plain language the challenge facing investigators.

“Whether it was a question of maintenance or design, or some unexpected act of God interfered, who knows?” he said.

Continued probing and reflection no doubt will lead to a more decisive finding — and perhaps action that will move rail-crossing safety up one more important level. But even if that happens, drivers still will be wise to remember Oberman’s poignant warning: “Don’t zoom through a rail crossing because there’s no lights flashing.”

At this point, we can know little more about the UP-pickup truck collision than the report’s observation that “The train’s whistle sounded for the first time and the crossing’s warning devices activated when the train was near the edge of the crossing.”

By that time it was too late for the locomotive to stop and too late for the driver to act. Driver Martin Martinez Jimenez of Round Lake Beach died and two passengers were injured.

“The (Ford driver) did what they were supposed to do. The train operator did what they were supposed to do,” P.S. Sriraj, director of the Urban Transportation Center at the University of Illinois Chicago, told Pyke.

NTSB investigators examined conditions of the track and equipment and the human component of the collision. Now, they will focus on policies and training and look closely at the technology of warning systems. It is encouraging and necessary that they work so thoroughly.

But even when all the final report’s t’s have been crossed and i’s dotted, a fundamental warning will remain valid.

“Warning device malfunctions are very rare,” Schweiterman said, “but when this occurs, there are huge risks.”

We all do well to keep them in mind.