(WSIL) -- Every three hours, a person or vehicle is hit by a train. One of those incidents happened in southern Illinois, with the driver managing to come out unscathed.
Administrative Sgt. Steven Whritenour, with the Centrailia Police Department, says a vehicle was struck by a freight train at one of the town's crossings on Wednesday.
"Officers arrived on scene and made contact with the, actually the driver of the vehicle and several witnesses."
He says the driver attempted to cross the tracks when the crossing arms didn't lift after a train finished passing.
"But Centralia is a crossroads for multiple train lines that come and go from all parts of the world."
As it turns out, the train the driver was waiting on, wasn't the only train the gates were closed for.
"And that train just cleared that crossing, but the gates remained down because there was an approaching south bound Canadian National train coming."
That's when the driver proceeded to disobey the signal, and collide with the oncoming train.
Chip Pew, with Operation Lifesaver, says too many accidents happen like this.
"Nationally, probably between 30 and 40% of all of the collisions occur at crossings that have that best protection. People are just failing to adhere to the warning that they're providing and just driving around them."
"You know you always have to honor the gates. If the gates are down and the lights are flashing, you don't go," says Whritenour.
Coming in at nearly 7,600, Pew says Illinois has the second most crossings in the nation.
"So really, you're talking about probability. A lot of trains, a lot of cars, a lot of crossings, at least in Illinois, the greater liklihood that somebody's going to take that chance and try and beat a train and unfortunately in those cases where that happens, it could be the end of the line."
This driver made the effort to maneuver around the downed crossing arms meant to keep drivers safe, but nearly two thousand crossings in Illinois are still passive, meaning they have no crossing arms at all.
You can find more video on the crash on the videographer's
