Vehicle strike. Some sources say this vehicle ran into side of train?
Now a 2nd collision same crossing car on tracks.
Melbourne police: Two dead in Friday Brightline crash (tcpalm.com)
I am certain the the Brightline power cars have forward facing video of the incidents.
One news report mentioned that the driver today ran around the gates. Wonder if Brightline could file a claim with the driver’s insurance policy?
Indeed they do.
They can and they do.
There is only so much a reasonable company or person can do. I think even if the tracks were grade seperated you might still have someone drive up the embankment, through the fence and get their car stuck on the tracks.
NTSB is investigating both crashes, and it will be interesting to see the developing docket.
I had thought the premise of all these rebuilt crossings was that they would be four-gate crossings. While two of the four arms may be lowered later ‘to give an escape for people trapped on the tracks’, they should all be down at least 10-20sec before the train arrives on the crossing. What I see in the security video of the Julian crash is that he drives around a stopped car but makes it all the way to collision with the side of the locomotive nose without any visible impediment like striking a gate. I don’t see how that should have been possible.
Perhaps even better if it were 30-45 seconds between when gates fully lower and a train entering.
I wonder if installing the one-way tire damaging strips would help to block cars from going around the gate while still allowing cars to exit the crossing. One improvement is a mechanism to hold the points down when the gates are open to allow emergency vehicles to use the opposing traffic lanes and also prevent damage to cars traversing the strips.
One other thought is how many incidents have to occur at a crossing before Brightline can tell the city to either fix the problem (e.g. much more enforcement) or have the crossing closed to vehicular traffic. A possible enforcement option is cameras at crossings with notices of violations sent directly to the insurance company covering the car.
I understand Brightline has been having incident since the day they started having training runs between West Palm Beach and Miami - and those incident have continued with rerularity - I don’t know if the FEC is haveing the same level of incidents as Brightline is on the same crossings.
S.Florida drivers are among the most brain dead I have personally encountered.
Some of it might be medical related though. I remember speaking with a GM Engineer at Warren back when I worked at GM HQ. Remember the last giant Chevy Caprice Classic back in the 1990’s? He stated there was a safety inquiry about why so many accidents with it in Florida and what GM found was the foot lbs of pressure on the brake pedal was a little high for elderly folks to stop the car faster versus other cars and older folks were the primary market for that car in Florida. So you never know if that is contributing here in some respects. The guy in one of these accidents was fairly up there in age. Also, without the hood ornaments on some of these newer cars they might have issues aiming the front of the car when they drive.
Hey, wow, on a related note, found my color EMD builder photos that were given me when I worked at GM. The old BN SD70MAC order included. Woo-Hoo!!
Driving around in South FL where I vist multiple times a year, it seems about a quater of the drivers are always dramatically speeding and changing lanes so they would probably be willing to drive around the down gates. Brightline is going to have to install 4 gates across all the crossings sooner or later due to public outcry. Maybe they can get some government reimbursement from some level to help.
There are a lot of elederly people driving in much of FL and that has been and always will be the case.
Not sure if there’s any info on the ages of the drivers who have been hit by Brightline trains, but I’d risk betting a good amount of money that older people are a small minority of the ones driving around gates.
This is by no means scientific nor exhaustive; when I was compiling post-accident reports in SoFlo it involved the mechanical relevancies: MP, consist, lead locomotive, inspection of brakes, headlights, windshield, etc. This was handed to the railroad and they dealt with the particulars. But correlating the incident with what was reported in the media the vast majority of last time drivers showed they were above 40 years of age and usually between 45-60. These were neither young kids nor seniors. Rather, most are “middle aged” and certainly knew better.
I guess from my point of reference, being in my 70s, I don’t consider 45 to 60-year-olds ‘older’. I’m sure my daughters would think the opposite. [:P]
"In spite of rising ridership and revenue, Miami-based private train service Brightline still finished hundreds of million of dollars in the red in the first nine months of 2023.
“According to Brightline’s latest quarterly unaudited financial statement report released Dec. 29, Brightline posted a net and comprehensive loss of $192.2 million between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30.”
Not surprised and their business plan from the start said they would not achieve profitability until after Orlando had opened. Not sure when after Orlando opened was their target for profitability but they still have not broken with their original business plan yet. Also, they should get credit for the pandemic, that would have shutdown any transportation company that was weakly financed but Brightline is still operating. Interestingly I heard they placed another order for additional Siemens trainsets. Not sure what those are for? Tampa or more frequencies?
Noticed TriRail is using Miami Central station downtown now.
There are no orders for “trainsets” although the press at large couldn’t likely define one. Twenty more coaches were on order last time I checked, ten for this year and the balance for next year filling out the ten sets to six cars. I have not ridden the extension yet but the unofficial intel I’ve received is the trains north of WPB are running half full. That is leaps and bounds ahead of where service started in 2018 when the trains were practically empty. Paradigm shifts take a while and Brightline seems to be ahead of the curve.
What I find the most interesting of this thread is the thread title. “Brightline collisions with vehicles” instead of “Vehicle collisions with Brightline”. Anyone else analyze it that way with the title? …then think about it?