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Driven first by sorrow and then by anger, Kuipers went on a mission to have lights and safety gates installed at a railroad crossing south of Harrisburg. Her twin sister and niece were killed there on Dec. 7, 2022, when an oncoming train struck the pickup they were riding in.
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The loss of life is always tragic, could this tragedy have been prevented with road crossing signs?
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Driven first by sorrow and then by anger, Kuipers went on a mission to have lights and safety gates installed at a railroad crossing south of Harrisburg. Her twin sister and niece were killed there on Dec. 7, 2022, when an oncoming train struck the pickup they were riding in.
Jodi Kuipers learned the hard way how much time, work and determination it takes to get safety improvements made at a railroad crossing in South Dakota, even at the site of a tragedy that took the lives of two of her closest family members.
Data show that of the 1,869 total crossings in South Dakota, two-thirds (66%) are marked only by crossbuck signs. Roughly 1 in 10 crossings has no safety marker or signal.