[andrewaylett]

Given that it's clear that this is not how people behave in practice, maybe we should take different steps to prevent the problem? Rather than blaming the user for the system's poor UX?

"Human error" isn't a very useful "root cause" for any incident. Humans make errors.

[michaelt]

If there's a level crossing without an automatic barrier, that's certainly poor UX.

But if there's a working automatic barrier, and the user bypasses it? Tough to see how you could UX your way around that.

[throwaheyy]

If people are reminded using novel imagery it can help a lot. A few years ago Melbourne introduced a campaign on its tram network that had a rhinoceros riding a skateboard to remind pedestrians/drivers not to cross/turn in front of a tram. It got people’s attention about the danger through a humorous analogy.

https://www.fizzicseducation.com.au/articles/science-in-publ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdeqwNzMhJQ

[catalogia]

> Given that it's clear that this is not how people behave in practice

Is that clear? Most people don't get hit by trains, so I don't think that's clear. I'd say most people are cautious around trains while a minority aren't, and a minority of those who aren't will get hit by trains.

[mnw21cam]

That's a dangerous way of thinking, and is in contradiction of the article. It implies that people get hit by trains because they are stupid, and it'll never happen to me because I'm not stupid. I would imagine that most of the people who do get hit by trains don't think they are stupid.

There's a physiological reason why people have a tendency to underestimate risk in certain situations, or miss obvious pending collisions. The usual comment from someone who has had such a collision is "They just came out of nowhere". See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23024275

Airplane pilots (particularly military fast jet), and ship captains are taught specific techniques to deliberately and systematically overcome these physiological limitations. Some of the techniques are taught in some driving schools (for example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18157090 ) and to be frank I think driving education should go all-out on it.

[catalogia]

The article argues that it's difficult to judge the speed of a moving train, and I don't doubt that's true. However if you're attempting to judge the speed of a train at all while at a train crossing, you're already doing it wrong. The cautious approach is to stop and wait for the train no matter how fast you think it's moving. This is what I do every time. This is what drivers ed programs teach. It's what common sense dictates. It's what most people do, and is the reason most people don't get hit by trains (3000 collisions per year is not very many at all when you consider how many times people cross train tracks each day.)

Might I still be hit by a train I never saw at all? Sure. Somebody I knew in highschool was hit by a train on a track he believed was abandoned and consequently, never looked down (he lived after being pushed 100m down the track). It's possible that might happen to me, at least if I ever forget that it happened to him. But what won't happen is getting hit by a train I see and judge to be moving slowly or not at all, because I stop for any train I see no matter how much time I think I might have to cross the track.

> Airplane pilots (particularly military fast jet), and ship captains are taught specific techniques to deliberately and systematically overcome these physiological limitations.

The "specific technique to overcome this physiological limitation" is: Don't race trains. Don't race trains even when you feel certain you can easily beat the train. Racing trains is stupid.

[barrkel]

> This is what I do every time

Nobody cares what you do all the time, though. In order to reduce accidents overall, we care about what the average person does. And if the average person does something else, then common sense isn't really the right term.

And even average person isn't the right bar. To really cut down on accidents, we need to see what the person who's behaviour is a couple of standard deviations less safe does in various scenarios.

[catalogia]

> And if the average person does something else, then common sense isn't really the right term. And even average person isn't the right bar.

It's quite evidently you don't think the average person is the right bar, because the average person doesn't race trains. 3000 a year is next to nothing compared to other common hazards.

Maybe we should eliminate all intersections, since although the average person obeys signal lights and signs, the occasional idiot chooses to run red lights instead. We should eliminate crosswalks too; the average person looks both ways before stepping into the street, but occasionally people don't (this happens FAR more often than train/car collisions.) Let's ban bicycles too; the average cyclist wears a helmet but some choose not to and get their heads split open. Let's also ban self-service gas stations; the average person can pump their own gas without burning the station down but sometimes some people fuck up and cause huge fires. Doesn't that mean we should all follow the lead of Oregon and New Jersey and ban this activity? 'Nobody' cares that you can pump your own gas safely, please be considerate of the rare idiot who can't.