Wednesday, October 20, 1999 (Washington, DC )

U.S. Transportation Secretary Rodney E. Slater today announced that Sgt. Gary W. Horton of the Erie County, New York, Sheriff’s Office has begun a one-year detail to the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to serve as a national outreach coordinator to law enforcement agencies and organizations across the nation. His mission will be to educate the law enforcement community about highway-rail crossing safety and railroad trespass prevention.

"I am very pleased that Sgt. Horton has joined us to help achieve results in our most important mission, improving safety, which is President Clinton’s highest transportation priority," said Secretary Slater.

Sgt. Horton is the fifth member of the law enforcement community to serve as the FRA’s national law enforcement outreach liaison. This detail program was developed in partnership with the National Sheriffs Association and the International Association of Chiefs of Police. It is a key trespass prevention and highway-rail grade crossing safety initiative in the U.S. Secretary of Transportation’s Rail-Highway Crossing Safety Action Plan published in 1994.

Since the Action Plan’s inception, there have been significant improvements in highway-rail crossing safety. Since 1993, highway-rail crossing collisions have declined 28 percent, crossing fatalities are down 31 percent, and injuries have decreased 29 percent. Even though awareness about the dangers at highway-rail crossings and railroad trespassing has increased, nationwide in 1998 there were 431 grade crossing fatalities and 536 trespass fatalities.

"We know there are dramatic declines in grade crossing and trespass fatalities and injuries where there is increased enforcement of existing laws by local law enforcement," said FRA Administrator Jolene M. Molitoris. "Sgt. Horton will continue the FRA’s efforts to work with state and local law enforcement and judicial agencies in enforcing existing grade crossing safety and trespass laws."

The officer detail is an element of FRA’s education, enforcement, engineering and advisory efforts to continue to reduce the number of highway-rail grade crossing collisions and casualties and railroad trespass incidents.

In 1997, the FRA drafted and provided to every state two model state laws to prevent railroad trespassing and vandalism. Since then, one state, Iowa, has adopted the model legislation as law and several others are actively considering doing so.

In addition, the Clinton Administration’s rail safety reauthorization bill for 1999 calls on the FRA to develop another model state law, one to deter motorists from committing grade crossing signal violations. Currently, almost half of all grade crossing accidents occur at crossings that have properly functioning active warning devices. The FRA’s proposed model legislation would encourage states to adopt tougher, more uniform penalties for violating grade crossing signals and to use more effective enforcement methods in order to promote signal compliance. Automated photographic enforcement technology is one such method.

Sgt. Horton has more than 24 years of experience with the Erie County Sheriff’s Office as a patrol officer and as the commander of its traffic bureau in the Police Services Division. He has extensive knowledge and experience in motor vehicle accident investigation and highway-rail grade crossing collision investigation. He has worked with Operation Lifesaver, Operation Safe Stop and the SAFE KIDS Coalition.