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Crime & Safety

Police Stage Crossing Safety Program, $250 Fines Blitz at Metra Station

When warning gates go down and bells sound, violators risk lighter pocketbooks in addition to their lives.

Glenview police will enthusiastically offer free, train safety education at the village’s between 6 and 8 a.m. Thursday and Friday.

But if the commuter "students" they encounter don’t pay attention to those lessons, they could find themselves $250 poorer. 

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In an annual event that is part of the , police are distributing informative material at the Metra station on awareness of crossing gates and laws against ignoring such warnings.

The pamphleteering will be followed up Wednesday, May 16, and Thursday, May 17, by a ticketing blitz in which police will follow the letter of the law. Pedestrians and motorists will be subject to the $250 fine if they cross against lowered gates and warning lights.

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The education-ticketing event, held in May in commemoration of the death of Victor Olivera, 11, is in its eight year. The youngster was killed while riding his bicycle across the tracks at Glenview Road against the warning lights on May 25, 2004. Olivera is the last non-suicide fatality involving contact with a train in Glenview, police said.

After Olivera’s death, his family and the DuPage Railroad Safety Council approached Glenview police to help educate pedestrians and motorists on rail safety.

Police and Metra safety efforts are aimed at continuing a downward trend in accidents at grade crossings throughout Illinois, officials said. When the state Operation Lifesaver program began in 1976, more than 800 railroad incidents and 96 deaths were recorded. By 2010, totals were down to 125 incidents and 27 deaths.

Glenview has three  grade crossings: Dewes Street, Glenview Road and Chestnut Street.

5 collisions in Glenview since 2008

Yet both pedestrians and motorists still continue to court danger. On Feb. 13 of this year, Police said the female driver, who was from Washington state, had made a wrong turn onto the tracks and got out and tried to signal the conductor of the oncoming train. She got out the way in time and was unharmed.

The car-train collision was the fifth incident recorded by police within Glenview in the past four years, explained Sgt. Pat Schuster of the Police Dept.’s traffic division.

In 2008, a woman was struck by a train, but survived, at the North Glen station; in 2009, a vehicle was hit at the Chestnut Street crossing; and in 2010 and 2011, a pair of suicides were reported as a result of train collisions.

“With the railroad improvements that have been done, there are a lot of pre-warnings that the train gates are there, and (gate) arms block pedestrian and vehicle movements, along with the lights and along with the bells,” said Schuster. “That aids to lower the number of incidents at these grade crossings.”

Officers to pass out pamphlets, warn of ticketing program

Schuster said four police officers will pass out Operation Lifesaver pamphlets detailing the “do’s and don’ts” of safety around crossings. The pamphlets detail the $250 fines for failure to obey crossing signals and gates with oncoming trains.

“We do let everybody know we’ll be out there the next week doing an enforcement campaign,” Schuster said. “It’s also published on the village web site. There’s plenty of forewarning we’ll be out there.”

In turn, police will fine pedestrians and motorists between 6 and 8 a.m. next Wednesday and Thursday. One officer will man a vehicle to pull over gate-hopping motorists.

“Before I became a supervisor in the traffic unit, I was an officer and I did participate in this program for several years,” Schuster said. “We have written citations to both pedestrians and drivers of vehicles.

Schuster said the most common excuses he hears inbolve being in a hurry and not wanting to miss the train to go downtown for work. 

Metra gets involved, also writes tickets

Metra police also augment local law enforcement efforts, said agency spokesman Tom Miller. Metra representatives conduct some 50 “safety blitzes” each year at stations throughout the system in which both pamphlets and person-to-person talks with commuters are employed. A Glenview visit is scheduled during the morning rush hour on June 19.

According to Miller, Metra has 31 grade-crossing enforcement campaigns scheduled for the rest of 2012 in which agency police will ticket violators. The ticket campaign is unannounced, he said, so potential violators don’t have advance warning as in Glenview’s program.

In a Nov. 23, 2010 Patch story on rail accidents in the northern suburbs, Metra spokesman Mike Gillis said the transit agency had issued 120 tickets to pedestrians for crossing violations in the previous five years. In 2010 alone, Metra wrote 86 citations to motorists.

Metra also runs the annual “Lead the Way: Look, Listen and Live,” a children’s safety program in which students wrote 300-word essays and amassed posters. One Glenview student, Ye Bin Park, won first place in the 2011 poster contest’s kindergarten division and another local student, Anna Lipkind, placed second in her division.

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