To clarify your fourth point, that is within the game design to limit queue length in gridlocks. This feature was also in Train Fever. If you click on a car near the head of a stationary queue you will find that they get teleported home after a certain wait time. You can reproduce this by stopping a train over a busy road. The queue is always finite.
I completely agree with the first three points although I get a certain sadistic pleasure when the train ploughs through a car. Too bad there is no dramatic graphic.

Originally posted by metropolis:

...I completely agree with the first three points although I get a certain sadistic pleasure when the train ploughs through a car. Too bad there is no dramatic graphic.

If a level crossing is very close to a signal or station, I think there should be a crossing clear check before the train is allowed to cross the road implemented by holding the signal (including the invisible inherent signal at stations) at red. When trying to squeeze a station close in to a town centre, it's almost inevitable a crossing ends up near a station, as in real life where such crossings are often supervised, either by a local attendant who has a dual control on the signals protecting the crossing, or remotely by the signaller/dispatcher with a CCTV link. Often barriers at the departure end are lowered well before the train sets off, even as the train runs into the platform. Those station mods with inbuilt pedestrian level crossings don't even have a means of stopping passengers from crossing right in front of a moving train. Absolute bloodbath when 100 passengers have just arrived and all walk straight out to their deaths in front of the departing train! The road closed time should also be longer for wide crossings over many tracks as pedestrians sometimes can't get clear in time before the trains arrive.

I remember in Transport Tycoon De Luxe (I think thats what it was called) when a train smashed into a vehicle at a crossing there was a wonderful explosion and fire. I used to locate tram stops just after the crossing so that a tram with trailers was inevitably caught. Wonderful!