“Van struck by Amtrack locomotive in south city”
and
“Suffolk train and lorry level crossing smash injures 21″

In both cases it would appear that the driver of the truck/van had misused the crossing. One came from a local US TV website, the other from English local news.

While the UK article does not apportion blame, the paragraphs below allow the reader to readily draw the conclusion that it was unlikely that the truck driver was using the crossing appropriately. It was a crossing on private land where the truck driver was required by law to phone the train dispatcher using the railroad telephone located at the crossing to ask for permission to cross. The signalling logs show that nobody called, and apparently, “[a] 38-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of railway safety offences.”

The US news site, however, show a similar situation, albeit with fewer injuries. But the emotive language used means that while they use factually accurate statements, you as a reader are left in no doubt that the van driver was the one at risk here, “[t]he van sustained heavy damage in the crash, the train appeared to have little, if any damage.”
(Hardly surprising given the weights and construction standards of the vehicles involved)
This is despite the fact that the previous paragraph makes it quite clear that the van driver was attempting to outrun the train, “a cargo van tried to cross the tracks ahead of a slow moving Amtrak train.”

I have found this common amongst US reporting of railroad incidents. The headline hardly ever indicates that some nutcase has driven into the path of a train, often despite warnings and barriers, and imply that the train didn’t stop, it just plowed straight into the car/van/truck, even though almost everyone knows it can take a couple of miles to stop a fully laden train, so it has no way of stopping in time. You never see the headline “Man drives car in front of moving train”, but you often see the headline “Train kills man driving car”, as if it was wilful on the part of the railroad or engineer, and not wilful on the part of the driver.

This is one of the reasons the US will retain the perception that roads are safer than railroads, because the media keeps up the pressure of blame where it does not lie.

In reply to “ad” of August 3rd, you are right that it is a risk that we choose to take. Although it is worth noting that not everyone has the right or capability of choosing to drive, either for financial, medical or legal reasons, but their “rights” in taking up the alternatives can be trodden upon by not insisting that street design and highway legislation accommodate the needs of these people. The fact that the media and police departments continue to perpetuate these “little lies” about blame and risk will mean that the rights of this group of citizens will continue to remain undermined in the US.

http://www.thestar.com/article/856651–english-is-a-car-crash-an-accident

If you are using a public road without a caged vehicle (pedestrian, bicyclist or motorcyclist) and you hit or are hit by a caged vehicle it is your fault because you are not in a caged vehicle and were asking for it.

That said, it seems the witnesses interviewed in the blog post recall the SUV hitting her.

This is because the private car is sacred and nothing may be done or said to imply that the driver was culpable. After all, the newspaper readers are all drivers.

If you are absolutely forced to say it was a driver at fault then demonise them some way that your readership thinks “not like me then”.

I’m surprised you haven’t noticed this, motorcyclists have known about it for years.