Re: I wonder if the driver regrets this?

For sure the driver can't have missed the train coming and blowing the whistle before he decide to cross the track. So he's at fault.
But if the gates were up, there's a railroad's fault too.
Hard situation to clear without knowing the railroad's procedures, and what means the light signal along the track.

Luckily, seems that there's only material damages.
But sometimes there's just luck to save people, and sometimes not.
Last month, a 40 years old woman was killed in her car when she crossed just in front of a touristic train near Vendome. Even at low speed (30 km/h) !
The visibility was good at that RR crossing, but the driver had not checked if a train was coming or not, since there's not a lot of trains per day on that line.

Infos here (sorry in French only):
Link 1
Link 2