JONESBORO - Duane Harvey has owned a business across the street from a rail crossing on U.S. 49 north of Jonesboro for 37 years.
That vantage point has proved grisly over the decades.
He has seen trains crumple vehicles on the tracks more times than he can count, including the cars and trucks of friends and neighbors.
"I've seen a lot of people killed," said the owner of Harvey's Motorsports & More, a motorcycle shop that sits opposite the intersection of County Road 928 and the highway, about midway between Jonesboro and Brookland.
That crossing has had eight accidents since 2003, the second-highest total for a single crossing in the state.
In response, federal funds totaling $225,000 paid for gatesand a stoplight in October. Craighead County leads the state in collisions between trains and highway vehicles over the past five years, with 33 accidents.
Those collisions resulted in three deaths and 20 injuries. That tally accounts for 9 percent of the state's total of highwayrail collisions, according to statistics from the Federal Railroad Administration.
The rate of deaths from col-lisions with trains has remained steady in Arkansas despite widespread publicity generated by a February 2005 crash that killed three paramedics near Fulton in Hempstead County.
Statewide, 12 people died last year in rail-crossing collisions, the highest total since 2002 and four more than reported in 2005.
After the 2005 ambulance collision, former state Rep. Johnnie Bolin, D-Crossett, called for a sales tax on special fuels and petroleum products used by railroad companies to raise money to upgrade safety at crossings.
That September, at a rail and mass transit House subcommittee hearing, railroad and transportation officials estimated that to install flashing lights and gates at all of the state's 2,800 crossings would cost at least $465 million.
Bolin called for an interim study to determine the best way to increase safety at crossings.
That was the end of it. No further hearings took place, and no legislation was introduced in the 2007 Legislative session.
Bolin, who left the Legislature in 2005 because of term limits, is now the executive director of the Arkansas Good Roads and Transportation Council. He said the issue died because most of the members interested left the Legislature.
"It was term limits. The next session there were only two or three members left over and no one filed any legislation on it. It sort of fell through the cracks,"Bolin said.
Railroad officials say that they have worked diligently for decades to educate the public about the inherent dangers of railroad crossings with campaigns like Operation Lifesaver.
"Our main safety message that we have is heed the warnings at the crossing and always yield the right of way to a train," said Mark Davis, a Union Pacific spokesman.
The highest number of incidents at a single crossing in the state since 2003 took place on North College Street in Stuttgart by the Riceland plant. Ten crashes, mostly between trains and tractor-trailers loaded with rice and soybeans, have occurred in that time span.
Riceland spokesman Bill Reed said he thinks most of the accidents are likely out-of-town truck drivers, picking up or unloading rice and soybeans, who misjudgethe crossing. Local residents know the potential danger, he said. The state highway commission recently approved safety upgrades at the crossing, which should be completed next year.
Although high-risk crossings like North College Street have been fixed or soon will be, across the state most crossings remain "passive" or without major safety features, said Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department traffic safety chief Jon Waldrip.
The state still does not contribute any money toward rail crossing safety, leaving federal funds to pay for the 10-15 crossings the department improves each year, he said.
Each crossing can cost up to $250,000 to equip with gates and flashing lights. About a third of the state's crossings have that kind of active protection, Waldrip estimated.
Most experts agree that the primary cause of rail-crossing accidents lies with car and truck drivers, not train operators.
Not pausing to look for an oncoming train - which sometimes are traveling in excess of 60 mph - or trying to beat it often results in death. Since 2003, 46 people around the state have died from accidents at crossings.
And no amount of money can prevent human folly, some observers said.
"You can't economically put gates and lights at every crossing. Caution lights are very expensive," said Craighead County Judge Dale Haas.
Haas, a former county sheriff, said that he found most accidents at rail crossings were because of drivers "being in a hurry."
"If you have to sit there half a day, it's better than losing your life. Wherever you were going, I promise you it can wait," Haas said.
Some Craighead County residents, especially in rural areas, say their crossings, often without gates or other active warning features, can be too dangerous and passing trains don't always blow their horns.
Aaron Miller, 30, lives just east of a crossing on Arkansas 226 in eastern Craighead County. He said he had friends and acquaintances hit by trains over the years and remembers being unable to return home after work because of a fatal crash last October.
Miller said he watches carefully for trains as he passes over the crossing, which does not have gates.
"But it's not all [the] drivers' fault. It seems like the only time [the trains] blow their whistles is when I'm trying to sleep," Miller said.
Safety experts agree that crossings with active warning systems dramatically reduce accidents.
The Hempstead County crossing where the paramedics died was upgraded in October 2006, Waldrip said, adding that there haven't been any more accidents.
The same is true of the crossing at Rogers Chapel Road and U.S 49 by Harvey's motorcycle shop.Since the lights and gates went in last October, things have quieted down considerably.
Harvey is a Craighead County justice of the peace who has worked to raise public awareness about crossing safety issues.
He said he hopes the days are over when trucks, caught on the tracks while they attempted to merge into the heavier highway traffic, get clipped by a train.
Rogers Chapel Road, which connects with County Road 928 just beyond the crossing, has become much busier in recent years, functioning as an eastern bypass around Jonesboro's sprawl, Harvey said, remembering when a Brookland fire truck - lights flashing - was hit because oncoming traffic refused to allow it on the highway.
That kind of behavior was becoming increasingly common and contributed to a majority of the crashes, Harvey said.
"Nobody would yield. They'd rather have somebody hit by a train than be a half-second late getting somewhere," he said.
Arkansas, Pages 24, 29 on 05/18/2008