The City of Hartselle is considering whether to allow Mayor Don Hall to close several city railroad crossings to truck traffic.

This editorial was written before a decision was made at the meeting on Tuesday night. However, we feel that this is a good way to prevent train crashes like the one we had earlier this month.

The accident was caused by a tractor-trailer driver who got lost and didn’t know he was going over a crossing that might cause him to get stuck on the tracks. If the proper signage had been up, he might have realized that he didn’t need to keep going down College Street before he wound up at the ill-fated railroad crossing.

Once he got stuck, there was nothing he could do until the proper wrecker arrived on the scene.

However, the CSX train didn’t have enough time to slow down before it struck the 18-wheeler on the tracks.

We hope that by closing these streets to truck traffic near the railroad crossings will prevent another accident from occurring.

While it may not completely prevent a truck driver from going down the wrong road, it might cause that person to realize they need to stop before they go too far.

We were lucky this time, but we may not be as lucky the next time. So we applaud the city for taking steps to prevent this from happening again.