I don’t understand the morbid fascination here? We get this in Texas as well with the constant jokes about Armadillo deaths. I guess there is a rough comparison between Texas Armadillo’s response to cars in regards to Floridians response to trains. Even so, address the root cause of the issue here which is the human interaction. Fix the accessibility of the tracks via fencing where possible, build overpasses, etc. BTW, use ramp or elevator overpasses for pedestrians, wheelchairs cannot climb stairs.
Disclaimer: I was never down there, but took a google street view tour of their mainline. It seems there are a lot of crossings that are near major intersections (4 lane+ road crossing another), with traffic lights, slip ramps, etc. Then you toss in high speed trains? Correct me if I’m wrong; those that have been there.
I don’t want to see it of course, but I’m afraid that there’s going to be a bad grade xing collision, and there will be slower speeds imposed on Brightline as a result.
With a good part of the Brightline tracks paralleling the highway, it’s nearly impossible to build overpasses or underpasses for the cars.
There could be pedestrian overpasses built, but I doubt their effectiveness. My little town has a pedestrian overpass crossing the BNSF double mainline. People who are 100 yards from the overpass will still not use the overpass. I’m not sure even fences would stop some of them.
How many of the fatalities are suicides?
Back when I was younger there was a real issue with people wearing a Walkman while walking or jogging. Now I suspect it is ear pods and being on a cell phone…it is just a hunch though. Walkman a locomotive engineer might spot from a distance. However, ear pods are not as visible.
I’ve been trying to find some statistics on that, but it seems like most of the news reports don’t differentiate between accidents or suicide.
I would bet the police and the train company know, but don’t tell the news companies, or the news companies have been told by their lawyers not to report it.
I did find that by 2023, there were seven ‘known’ suicides. I’m sure there were more but not reported as such.
Authorities will only assign suicide if they can not finagle some form of accidental reason.
Many insurance policies don’t pay out on suicide and authorities will do everything possible to make the official cause accidental, even when suicide is likely the actual cause.
My Condo in Jacksonville is about a mile West of the the South End of FEC’s Bowden Yard in Jacksonville, with line proceeding due South from the yard, roughly parallel and East of US 1, also known as Philips Highway. There are multiple E-W roads that cross the FEC at grade and have a traffic light where the E-W road has the intersection with Philips Highway. There are between five and ten automobile lengths between the tracks and the Philips Highway intersection. Each grade crossing has ‘Do Not Stop on Tracks’ signs posted in both directions. The Traffic Lights on Philips Highway are ‘interlocked’ with the crossing protection to the extent of displaying ‘Do Not Turn’ indications for traffic intending to go West and crossover the FEC.
These kinds of crossing situations are endemic throughout the entire state of Florida; at least the parts I have dealt with which is from the Florida/Georgia Line to Homestead which is South of Miami.
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Are the traffic lights timed with the gates so a car won’t be trapped by a red light when the gates come down?
They aren’t four quadrant gates and it is not a quiet zone.
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Im sure they do, but it doesn’t take much to jam up a road. I’ve seen it on the crossings we have that have a preemption cycle.
That’s just like most “killed while cleaning gun” are really suicide. There’s no way to clean a loaded gun.
You would be surprised how many Army Infantryman accidently fire a round off indoors (in whatever direction) because they forgot to clear the weapon prior to entering the building. So on that statistic, you might be 50/50 in accuracy.
Also, speaking from experience on the local ranges here in Texas, a lot of the folks that carry for machismo reasons…have no clue how to aim (he-he-he). I have left a range early one time because even though I was waiting behind a guy to fire, he was pointing the damn weapon everywhere while it was loaded not realizing it was loaded. There was another German guy on that range that rented an AK-47 and he never shot an assualt rifle before, they just handed the thing over the counter to him, he was a couple lanes down from me though and I had adequate cover for him. I don’t know what it is with Germans and firearms or explosives, give them some and they turn into that Crazy Harry character from the Muppet Show.
It is possible just expensive. you have a bridge spanning perpendicular to the highway and RR. At each end of the bridge build ramps parallel to the RR that go down to the highway on one side and the local roads on the other side.
Agree. I’m OK with the response as it is just an exchange of opinions.
Texas which has plenty of land has built some wierd freeway crap. Intead of condemning buildings and land in Austin, they double stacked a freeway there. North of Dallas they widened the freeway and reversed all the off and on ramps. They are seriously talking about a long tunnel under Dallas to accomdate a downtown HSR rail station if they build HSR (cha-ching!). It is always a question of money.
My daughter lives in Southlake, so I am happy that driving in from the north, I don’t have too much Dallas traffic to deal with.
Are most of the pedestrian deaths at the major crossings, or are they along tracks where there isn’t a crossing?
I don’t know if where it happened would indicate a suicide or not
The Chesterfield crossing of the NCTD (AT&SF) Surfline in Cardiff is a four quadrant gate with a traffic light two car lengths from the gate. Usually not a problem, but sometime last year I was following a tourist that made a left turn onto San Elijo with a bunch of cars following, with the tourist stopping maybe 4 to 5 car lengths after making the turn. Fortunately there was no train coming as it would have been quite the pucker factor if one was coming through.
Ignorance can be remedied with education. Stupid go’s all the way to the bone. And don’t forget the all important 'likes" some people get from doing stupid things.
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