Laredo 's Operation Lifesaver highlights railroad crossing safety for area drivers
By Katherine Eissler
In May 2000 an 18-wheeler attempting to beat an oncoming train was struck and flipped over after failure to yield to right of way warnings at the Mann Road crossing. In August 2003 a Houston truck driver died after being struck by a train at the crossing at Millet Road and FM 469, and in 2004 a Mirando City man was killed in a collision with a Texas Mexican Railway engine, while also trying to illegally traverse the tracks on Main Street .
These are the horrors the Laredo Police Department (LPD), Union Pacific Police Department (UPPD), Webb County Sheriff's Department, and the Department of Public Safety have tried to prevent with the implementation of Operation Lifesaver.
Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus sponsored the initial program in 1972 as an educational campaign targeted at all ages and all occupations including its own police departments. The program spread nationally between 1978 and 1986, operating under the National Safety Council (NSC). All continental states soon had their own independently operating programs, and in 1986 Operation Lifesaver was released from the NSC and became a national non-profit organization. Operation Lifesaver also positions officers on trains to monitor and report illegal railroad crossing activity.
When Operation Lifesaver began there were approximately 12,000 reported collisions between trains and motor vehicles annually. Thirty years later that number was reduced by 74 percent, according to the Unites States Department of Transportation.
Almost four years ago a railroad employee saw a need to take preventative measures in Laredo and put into action Operation Lifesaver.
“It's an educational campaign to get people to pay attention to train signs,” said police officer Abraham Diaz, LPD's El Protector. “People who race the trains can be cited for not yielding.”
Diaz said Webb County has had three deaths this year due to lack of care, and added that last year Laredo and Webb officers issued approximately 50 citations.
The program targets schools, civic organizations, and El Metro, as well as their own police departments.
“When officers have gotten a call and are running hot, they often think they can beat a train, which is running hot, too,” said UPP Officer Alfredo Rodriguez. “They must be educated as well.”
Crossing the tracks on foot is like jaywalking, said Rodriguez. Offenders can be cited for trespassing because the tracks are private property.
Although the trains never exceed 50 miles per hour between San Antonio and Laredo , breaking crossing rules can be very dangerous. Rodriguez said that if something is on the track the engineer could only plug the brakes and pray that the train doesn't hit it. There are 22 seconds between the time the crossing gates go down to prevent traffic from crossing and the time the train passes an intersection, but in town intersections are more numerous, making illegal crossing all the more precarious.
Even before the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, Union Pacific was seeing a continual increase in railway shipping, according to UP's Southwest Director of Public Affairs John Bromley.
“In 1996 Laredo averaged 10 trains a day; now they average 18 every 24 hours,” said Bromley. “There has been a steady growth. There's no question about that.”
Currently, Texas Mexican Railway runs an average of four northbound trains and an average of five southbound trains a day through Laredo , according to Doniele Kane, Director of Corporate Communications and Community Affairs for Kansas City Southern, the holding company for Texas Mexican.
Kane said a decade ago, TexMex ran only one northbound train and one southbound train a day through Laredo .
This increase in shipping has produced the need for stringent monitoring of railway-grade crossings.
According to the Federal Railroad Administration's 2002 statistics, Texas was ranked number one in the country for highway-rail grade crossing collisions with a total of 325. Texas retained that ranking for highway-rail grade crossing fatalities with 37,125 injuries and 68 pedestrian trespass injuries. Texas was ranked number two under California with 44 pedestrian trespass fatalities.
