There isnt much you can do anymore to stop people.
Where i live i watched a guy walk infront of a 4 car passenger train going 85mph with about 4 seconds to spare. Well if he waited an extra 4 seconds the engineer wouldnt have had to have that heart attack (figure of speech) for nothing.
The way I see it is people are morons in general and only think of themselves, sooo…if they want to cause other people greif and pain for their own stupidity go ahead, die, I hope your happy…you killed yourself and caused haslte for many others.
The problem, is that they usually kill several innocent people along with them. Often children. If it were not for the fact that the driver is dead, he/she would be brought up on one or another of various murder charges (probably some form of vehicular homicide). What they are really doing amounts - in legal terms - to murder/suicide.
The other thing, is, that not all of these accidents are negligence. This winter, near Madras, Oregon, a family was on the way from their ranch to school. Dad was at work at his perimedic’s job. On the way, the family drove a road that dipped off a small ledge to the railroad tracks. Road is covered with ice with a layer of water on top. They tried stopping more than a quarter mile away, slowing from their raod speed of less than 20 mph. But they did not get stopped prior to the top of the “hill” and slid down the road for 1/4 mile to finally stop underneath the moving train. Dad was on the rescue crew.
So, when we are talking on this subject, we should realize that a few of these messes are not stupid jerk caused. Everybody involved really did try to do it right.
May I suggest additional reading: N.Y. Times News Service article from last year some time, by Erica Goode, “STUDY FINDS INCOMPETENT PEOPLE TOO INCOMPETENT TO REALIZE TRUTH.”
In the Los Angeles area, the new MTA Gold Line opens this weekend, and most of it follows a former Santa Fe route from LA to Pasadena. Most of the crossings have four-quadrant gates and even pedestrian gates. But what do you bet we’ll see a fatal accident in the not-too-distant future. Such an accident will likely be caused by the dare-devil/thrill-seeker approach to life that some people have…
If they still have the idiotic “no whistle” rule enforced by the city through there and people still climb all over the Alhambra viaduct like they did in the 90’s , it’s a slam dunk…
There probably will be some sort of accident. I don’t think that there is any crossing anywhere in the world that is 100% idiot-proof. There are a great deal of the daredevils and thrill-seekers out there. I once heard about a guy from a town near where I live whose idea of fun was to stand in the middle of the track as a train was coming and, like a moron, happily wave at the crew on board. He would then jump away at the very last second as the train got right to him. The last time he tried this he had been drinking…I don’t think I need to say the outcome. If you think that guy was stupid I also heard of a pedestrian who was so impatient while waiting for a train that he actually tried to craw under the moving train to get to the other side. It’s not just the motorists we have to worry about.