The Original Poster clearly stated that he was not as familiar with the operating rules as a professional railroader must be. That said, he was off-base in accusing folks of "violating" rules. I suspect this points more to his ignorance that different railroads may have different operating rules, depending in large part on their specific characteristics and operational needs. For instance, I'm an Easterner, and I am unfamiliar with the Standard Code of Operating Rules as used by most western railroads, just as folks from the west may be unfamiliar with the NORAC rules. As far as that goes, I noted that even the hand signals vary from one railroad to another.
During my career of managing short line railroads, I wrote several Books of Rules as required by the FRA, using the NORAC rules as their basis but tailoring the book to the particular characteristics of the railroads I worked on. For example, since none of those railroads had any sort of signal system, there was no need to include those sections of the NORAC Rules.