The Utah Transit Authority (UTA) has announced a public education campaign they are starting in an effort to inform people of the safety precautions that need to be adhered to around commuter trains.

This campaign is the result of the numerous accidents and deaths involving TRAX and FrontRunner trains.

This year there has been a total of 11 TRAX and FrontRunner accidents, five of which were fatal.

UTA acknowledged that a good number of the accidents were happening at street grade-level crossings and discussed their plans to phase out these crossings.

“For every grade crossing we open, we’d like to close three. So we’re inherently trying to reduce the number of at-grade crossings that exist in our system,” said UTA spokesman Mike Allegra.

Trains are also being marked with multicolored messages as reminders of how to safely act around the trains.

Though the 11 accidents that have occurred this year is a high for Utah, when compared with surrounding states, Utah’s accident rates are significantly lower.

According to an article from FOX 13, the numbers for five neighboring states city commuter trains are as follows:

• Phoenix, 47 incidents, 0 deaths
• Portland, 48 incidents, 2 fatal
• Sacramento, 37 incidents, 2 fatal
• San Jose, 10 incidents, 1 fatal
• Denver, 7 accidents, 3 fatal

The number of accidents in Utah this year has gone up by one thus far and UTA does not want it to increase any longer.

The auto accident attorney in Salt Lake City at the Christensen Law Firm encourage you to be aware of this new education program and to do your best to follow the safety guidelines put in place by the UTA to keep you safe while riding TRAX and FrontRunner trains.