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It’s not that it happens so much, it’s that every time it happens it gets posted to social media, and multiple times at that.
Its called “high centering”. Tractor trailers tend to have very long lengths between axels compared to cars. Some train crossings are on a bump, and if a truck tries to go over it, the underside will get caught on the tracks and get stuck.
If you ask me, it’s because they make trucks come to a stop at the tracks. You’re much more likely to stall leaving from a dead stop than if you were approaching the tracks at low speed, and crossed without stopping.
Buses are another example. It’s such a brain-dead rule. Despite depending on the driver to evaluate the conditions and drive safely hundreds if not thousands of times during the day, they cannot make a decision that it’s safer to cross a siding without stopping. Instead they come to a complete stop in the middle of a 4 lane road with a 50 mph speed limit, as though that’s safer.
Near me there is an industrial warehouse section of town with tracks all over the place. When a train actually runs through there to drop off train cars, the conductor walks ahead of the train with a flag. The train is going slower than a walking pace, because of all the uncontrolled crossings.
There is one particular warehouse where the train track crosses the street, goes up the driveway and dissappears into the building behind a closed roll up door. Yet, when the bus comes by, it faithfully stops in front of that track, as though a train might suddenly come crashing through that door.
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