The way it's supposed to work, the ground controller first verifies that there are no traffic conflicts before clearing vehicles to cross an active runway.
replyWhich is exactly what failed here, so saying "it shouldn't fail by not failing" doesn't help terribly much.
replyHaving grade-separate crossings for vehicles might, but that introduces new issues (plane skidding off runway could hit the incline and break up).
O’Hare has those but it’s not helpful for emergencies that happen on the runway itself.
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