Cite as: 507 U. S. 658 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
road Administrator to operate in excess of the maximum speed limit of 110 miles per hour, but only upon submission of information pertaining to the signals, grade crossing protections, and other devices that will allow safe operation.
Read against this background, § 213.9(a) should be understood as covering the subject matter of train speed with respect to track conditions, including the conditions posed by grade crossings. Respondent nevertheless maintains that pre-emption is inappropriate because the Secretary's primary purpose in enacting the speed limits was not to ensure safety at grade crossings, but rather to prevent derailments. Section 434 does not, however, call for an inquiry into the Secretary's purposes, but instead directs the courts to determine whether regulations have been adopted that in fact cover the subject matter of train speed. Respondent also argues that common-law speed restrictions are preserved by the second saving clause of § 434, under which "a State may . . . continue in force an additional or more stringent law . . . relating to railroad safety when necessary to eliminate or reduce an essentially local safety hazard, and when not incompatible with any Federal law, rule, regulation, order, or standard . . . ." The state law on which respondent relies is concerned with local hazards only in the sense that its application turns on the facts of each case. The common law of negligence provides a general rule to address all hazards caused by lack of due care, not just those owing to unique local conditions. Respondent's contrary view would completely deprive the Secretary of the power to pre-empt state common law, a power clearly conferred by § 434. At the least, this renders respondent's reliance on the common law "incompatible with" FRSA and the Secretary's regulations. We thus conclude that respondent's excessive speed claim cannot stand in light of the Secretary's adoption of the regulations in § 213.9.15
15 Petitioner is prepared to concede that the pre-emption of respondent's excessive speed claim does not bar suit for breach of related tort law duties, such as the duty to slow or stop a train to avoid a specific, individual
675
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