Opinion: Your License or Your Life

By Gerri Hall

resident, Operation Lifesaver

On March 15, 1999, Bourbonnais, Ill., an out-of-the-way town on the Amtrak line outside Chicago became synonymous with catastrophe. If the story ended there with the collision between the truck hauling steel and the Amtrak passenger train, it would indeed be devastating. But Operation Lifesaver and the American Trucking Associations are drawing upon their nearly 30-year partnership to write another ending. A new safety video, “Your License or Your Life,” is being released nationwide, alerting professional drivers anew to the dangers around the rails.

What’s important? Stopping distances for trains? Absolutely! What about the three-foot overhang on a train. Yes, but trucks have overhang, too. Either one could result in a tragedy. So we included both in the video.

What about rules at the crossing? Who is required to stop? All vehicles carrying hazmats, but specific requirements can vary by state.

Lots of critical information could help drivers, but we were concerned about how to explain it without sending people into slumber. Why not use truck drivers who’d “been there, done that” to talk to other drivers? Enter America’s Road Team captains to star in the video.

	Safety Video
	Read more about the video and the America's Road Team members who star in it (on Truckline) Watch the video online (reqires RealPlayer) Rail grade crossing safety tips (on Truckline) (Note: To return to this story, click the "Back" button on your browser.)

The script was written by Neill Darmstadter, for 50 years an ATA safety expert, and Stuart Flatow, ATA’s OSHA expert, with Operation Lifesaver. For shooting the video we found a location in northwest Georgia with plenty of trains and trucks. Our partners at Norfolk Southern and CSX were concerned that the amount of train and vehicle traffic might make it impossible to do the job safely. Nearby, the Flying J Truck Stop, where we filmed in the coffee shop and parking lot, was so busy in mid-December we had a tough time finding parking spaces for the three trucks featured in the video.

Road Team members will get good-natured ribbing from their driving colleagues for their “movie appearance,” since the 9½ minutes of finished video makes it look easy. Actually, hours were spent reviewing the script, practicing lines so we could understand every word and re-shooting scenes to meet the high standards of producer Jay Hamilton and director Mark Hanna.

Jimmy Woodson of Roadway Express, carries the message loud and clear: “Don’t be a sitting duck! Don’t get caught with your tail hanging out over the tracks.”

Victor Jarvis, M.S. Carriers, took little prompting to pull his commercial driver license out of his wallet and look straight at the camera: “This is our meal ticket, right? You could lose it if you disobey the rules at the crossing.”

Vickie Carpenter, FedEx Ground, explained that the “first violation means a 60-day suspension.” But she added a little spice at the end, encouraging drivers to “be careful out there.”

All it takes is one driver who is in a hurry, who forgets to look just one time. That’s a high threshold for error. Almost a year to the day after Bourbonnais, in the same part of Georgia where we’d been shooting the video, a school bus collided with a train, leaving three children dead. People who drive for a living know they can’t be distracted on the job. A bad day for a driver can result in death — maybe many deaths and millions of dollars lost. So we have a tremendous challenge in training.

The videos start with five easy-to-remember steps in a Crossbuck Drill. Each comes with a picture to refresh the memory.

As a reminder of the destruction that can occur, five serious collisions are featured, along with what drivers can do to avoid getting into a similar bind. The collisions include Fort Payne, Ala., where the flatbed driver disregarded the crossbuck sign and may not have heard the train horn because his windows were closed; Clairton, Pa., where a tanker driver misjudged the proximity of the train, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages; and Sycamore, S.C., where a low-bed semi-trailer got stuck on a hump crossing. Damages there exceeded $1 million.

Getting stuck on a hump crossing is one of the six offenses for which a truck driver can be disqualified for not less than 60 days. To help drivers avoid this penalty, the video gives six tips for “If you Get Stuck on the Tracks . . .”

In 1972, when Operation Lifesaver began, we recognized rail and trucking have much more in common than competition. That hasn’t changed. Nor has the heavy responsibility we share for safety on the rails and on the highways, particularly where the two intersect.

We salute all our partners for the good job they do. The Federal Highway Administration credits Operation Lifesaver and its partners with saving 10,000 lives and preventing 40,000 injuries. That is why we observe Operation Lifesaver Day May 17 during National Transportation Week — to celebrate the efforts of both the trucking and rail industries, law enforcement and 100 other partners in transportation safety. We thank those who help us in projects like the video, and especially those who deliver the goods safely, day after day. They know there can be no bad days in transportation. The price is too great!