Sec. 391. (1) A railroad shall not permit a train to obstruct vehicular traffic on a public street or highway for longer than 5 minutes at any 1 time, except the obstruction shall not be considered a violation under the following circumstances: (a) If the train is continuously moving in the same direction at not less than 10 miles per hour for not longer than 7 minutes. (b) If the railroad can show that the incident occurred as a result of a verifiable accident, mechanical failure, or unsafe condition. (2) A railroad shall not permit successive train movements to obstruct vehicular traffic on a public street or highway until all vehicular traffic previously delayed by such train movements has been cleared. (3) A railroad company shall not permit its employees to allow the activation of active traffic control devices at a railroad grade crossing for more than 2 minutes if there is no intention to move a train or track equipment through the crossing within 20 seconds to 60 seconds after the activation of the devices. (4) Each offense under this section shall be a separate violation punishable by a fine of not more than $500.00 unless the railroad is willfully, deliberately, and negligently blocking vehicular traffic and then the fine shall be not more than $1,000.00 and the costs of prosecution. (5) All fines civil or otherwise collected by a local unit of government in excess of $10,000.00 annually from the enforcement of a local ordinance substantially similar to this section shall be allocated as follows: (a) Fifteen percent shall be retained by each local unit of government for costs of enforcement of the ordinance. (b) Eighty-five percent shall be deposited in a railroad grade crossing safety fund. The revenue collected in this fund shall be used solely for railroad grade crossing safety projects in these local units of government.
Mich. Comp. Laws § 462.391
Obstruction of vehicular traffic; offenses as separate violations; penalty; allocation of fines
Applied in 4 court decisions — leading case CSX Transportation, Inc. v. City of Plymouth (2000)
Most recently applied in 777 F. Supp. 2d 1143 - Driesen v. Iowa, Chicago & Eastern Rr Corp. (February 2011)
1993, Act 354, Imd
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: Michigan Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Michigan statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.