Railroads have been operating in this state since the late 1860s . Grade crossings have been around about the same amount of time. Distracted people, well they have been around since the dawn of man. The distracted individual ratio has increased exponentially in recent days with the advent of portable electronic devices. The need to have music blaring in your ears from the time you wake in the morning has become a real problem. It's one thing to be in this condition in the safety of your own home, doing so in most public locations is rude and dangerous. When you cannot hear the world around you , surprises of enormous proportions are in your future. Couple this with looking at a 3 inch screen with text on it and you are at the mercy of everything around you. Darwin would have a field day with this.

The world is full of visual and auditory clues that warn you of impending danger. It is the individuals responsibility to be aware of their surroundings at all times. Sure we watch out for these people as we don't want to be the cause of an accident. The awareness needs to be mutual for this to work. There seems to be no end to this and it gets worse every year. $60k and change is not going to alter this in any measurable way, it will only serve to annoy those of us that still pay attention as we will be the only ones to see it.