(WHTM) — If it feels like railroad tracks are everywhere in Pennsylvania, well that’s not your imagination.

Pennsylvania has one of the highest densities of tracks per square mile in all of America. They help provide jobs and transportation throughout the Midstate, but they also come with risks we need to be aware of. Some bad things you watch on the news, and maybe you feel like they happen more than they actually do.

With crashes at railroad crossings, it’s just the opposite. Turns out, they are much more common than we realize.

“We definitely hit something,” a passenger said who was aboard a train near Charlotte, which collided with a tractor-trailer stuck on the tracks. “It was like a jerk, like boom, like we just kind of all went forward a little bit.”

No one was seriously injured. However, that’s not the case for 21-year-old Ella Miller who was killed while crossing train tracks near Raleigh, North Carolina, one of two fatalities in just one month in the small town of Clayton there. In March, SUV near Norfolk, Virginia, was involved in a crash. Then in April, there was a crash with a limousine near Memphis.

More than two thousand scenes like this in America each year. There is particular attention on it all this week because of Operation Lifesaver of Pennsylvania’s Brock Kerchner.

“Every three hours in the United States, a train hits a person or a vehicle,” Kerchner said. “So, during ‘See Tracks Think Train Week,’ we specifically push rail safety in this week to the public to make sure that they understand the dangers of being around railroad tracks.”

Kerchner has one piece of advice that is similar to other kinds of risks.

“Whether you’re in a car or whether you just walking around, remove your distractions,” Kerchner said. “If you have earbuds in, take them out. Some crossings have warning devices such as lights or gates, but if there aren’t any, the trains always have the right of way. You must yield to the train.”

That’s the law, but physics also plays a part.

“The train will always win at a crossing,” Kerchner said. “If you’re trying to beat the train, looking down the tracks, there’s an optical illusion. you really can’t tell how much time you have to clear the tracks.”

That’s one reason why the high-speed Brightline train service in Florida has been involved in nearly 200 crashes alone, including this one with a fire truck.

“A 100-car freight train going 55 miles an hour takes over a mile to stop,” Kerchner said. “That’s 18 football fields.”

Here’s what horn pattern to listen for.

“Two longs, a short, and then another long,” Kerhcner said.

Especially important at crossings without gates, although most crashes happen where there are gates. Drivers trying to beat them, that kind of thing. You don’t want to start crossing a track until there’s already about twice your car length open on the other side. Keep in mind you need to clear more than just the width of the track, because the train is wider than the track.

The “See Tracks? Think Train Week” initiative was started in 2017 between Operation Lifesaver Inc., State Operation Lifesaver Programs and rail safety partners across the county, Canada and Mexico, according to Operation Lifesaver’s website. More about the initiative can be found online.