“The car drove around the crossing gate, witnesses said.”
“It was not immediately known how fast the train was going or what caused the accident.”
Uh, let’s see. The reporter isn’t clear on what caused the accident? International terrorism, maybe? Or high cholesterol? Maybe over-fishing in the Grande Bank of Newfoundland? C’mon, when a car drives around a crossing gate and does a physics experiment with a moving train, there’s not much doubt about “what caused the accident.”
It’s stupid enough in a truck or car, but how about the ultimate-a motorcycle?
Something I witnessed 1st hand some years ago-I was sitting at a CR crossing near here about 4 cars back from the gates. A train was approaching at about 30 MPH I’d guess-I then watched a Harley rider (with his lady friend on the back no less) proceed to go around the gates from the other side of the crossing when the lead engine was less then 50-60 feet from the crossing-& then if that wasn’t bad enough, he decided to play a bit of chicken & stopped!!! He actually waited until the pilot of the engine was less than 10 ft or so away before he gunned it across.
When I was able to resume breathing, I wanted to stop him as he passed me so I could give him his “sign!”
I guess the driver never saw the film in defensive driving class which states as plain as day: A train hitting a car is the same as a car running over an aluminum coke can. Some people never learn. Chalk up another one for the elimination of another “stupid” chromosome in the human gene pool.
Same general area of Florida as the first incident:
Speeding car (one young male, three young females) zipped around one stopped car and lowered gates, was punted several hundred feet by Amtrak passenger train traveling at track speed. Four fatalities, no significant damage to or injuries aboard train.
Pickup truck and Amtrak (again!) disagreed on right of way at signaled, gated grade crossing. Driver dead on scene, train had several cars derailed, onboard injuries?
What’s the deal here? Is Florida suddenly suffering a wave of utter idiocy, or do we have two cases of copycat suicide? I wonder how many OTHER car-train arguments have taken place there which didn’t make the national news because no passenger trains were involved.
My deepest sympathy to:
The three innocent victims of the multi-fatality incident, their families and friends.
The crews of the trains involved.
The emergency responders who had to bag the bodies.
This isn’t over. Just wait until the surviving family gets the bright idea to sue the railroad for not making it completely impossible to drive around the gates, no matter how determined an idiot individual might be. Naturally, they’ll find a “compassionate” judge who won’t throw the case out on its ear, the way any normal human being would.
I think the locomotive crew should sue the idiot’s family for the post-traumatic stress they’re going to suffer as a result of his stunt.
Both my son and my sister are conductors for Amtrak, and both have been involved in several rail crossing accidents. My sister has told of looking for body parts in hidden places under the locomotives, and decided not to complete her engineer training because she didn’t want to be at the throttle when the inevitable fatalities happened. My son has been involved in three of these accidents. The first was with a chlorine truck crossing several tracks at a private crossing. The engineer blew the horn for as long as she could as soon as she saw the truck, but the idiot driver kept going across. His truck was knocked for a loop, but the driver survived. My son was injured in this one, for which I bear a great resentment against the idiot truck driver. The second one involved a tractor trailer. The driver was STOPPED at the crossing, and asked a passing pedestrian to raise the crossing gate. The pedestrian DID raise the arm for him! The tractor made it across, but his half loaded trailer didn’t, and thousands of cans of tomato sauce were scattered everywhere. The the third was a bicyclist, who weaved around the lowered crossing gate. The bicyclist didn’t survive…
i am sure that all here will agree - the jokes and funny comments [which in turn are reality] are / must immediately be put aside when you read something like this.
I would [without any authority on the subject] kindly suggest that an engineer take it as “part of the job, that one day just might happen”. [all politeness, apathy and empathy implied here to all loco engineers and conductors]
The trains crew [especially the driver] cannot be held in any way responsible for any person or object who decides to cross the tracks when the gates are down and the sirens and lights are going.
As previously stated : a train hitting a car, truck, cyclist or pedestrian is just like a coke can being crushed by either of the just mentioned.
When will they learn! The train ALWAYS has the right of way, I don’t care if it’s only creeping along! In some places it’s automatic jail time for going around the gates.
One evening, I was looking out my window that overlooked the B&M tracks in Concord, MA. I heard the bells and saw the gates go down, and then I saw a car smash right through the gate, taking it out completely. The car kept on going. All I could do was phone the police, but unfortunately I didn’t get a plate number.
George Bush. Isn’t he personaly responsible for absolutely everthing wrong in the entire world? It’s clear that if he wasn’t so misguided the poor innocent driver wouldn’t have HAD to go around the flashing crossing gate and there would be peace in Africa.