[inferiorhuman]

  Either way, in socal the metrolink trains operate at grade going pretty fast up
  to 80mph and you don't see so many accidents. I'd blame some other factor over
  the fact the train runs on the surface behind a gate.

Such as? Brightline has the worst record in the country. In the Bay Area Caltrain runs similar speeds, for a similar length of track, and still manages half the annual deaths. And, yes, Caltrain deals with people on the tracks fairly regularly. And, yes, I know nothing's perfect – someone just managed to drive right into a BART train last Monday. Regardless, Brightline is doing a worse job than any other rail company and they're resistant to any obvious (and relatively low cost) improvements. Caltrain, while already having a better safety record, is moving towards grade separated crossings to safely facilitate higher speeds. Grade separation is way more expensive than the shit that Brightline is refusing to do.

[asdff]

I would guess its just that people are used to slow moving freight trains compared to an 80mph train in florida. I can't otherwise explain why so many Floridians insist on driving past a rail gate. I can't blame brightline when they seem to have the exact same sort of flashing light and gate in socal without this safety record. So in these two cases the train is operating at the same speed, the level of infrastructure is the same, so the only factor I could think to be different that might explain the difference in safety is the culture of the drivers. It just doesn't make sense to knock brightline imo when they are just doing what other rail agencies are doing, and its probably something that's federally standardized somehow anyway, so if anything blame falls on the agency writing standards that aren't enough to meet the realities.