Did the freight car they hit have reflectors on the side? The FRA says that railcars are too hard to see at night, and thus need to have side reflectors to make them easier to see, so people do not run into them at grade crossings. Would this admission by the FRA have an effect on this case if the car they hit did not have reflectors?
Does a freight car without reflectors become more of a crash hazard once the public becomes accustomed to being warned by cars with reflectors?
Depends…
Is there a sign (probably 2) warning oncoming motorists that a car might be in the road? Cause railroads usually have those… If you stumble upon a stop sign at 80mph, can’t stop, and hit a car at the intesection - would you consider that passing car at fault?
Reflectors aren’t going to help if you’re outdriving your headlights.
Ok park the car there. Then put a sign up a ways down the road saying that there may be cars parked on the road ahead. If I fail to respond properly (high beams, slow down, etc) then I screwed up if I hit it.
There was an incident similar to this one around here 10/12ish years ago where a car was flying down a road around 3 AM being piloted by teens joyriding in mom’s car. They had his mothers car for a date with her permission. They were speeding (20-30 mph over) and driving with lights off when they hit a stationary flat car that was part of a train being switched into an industry. There were lighted crossbucks, and 2 signs saying RR Crossing ahead. My best friend and his girlfriend were both killed because of the driver’s (his) behavior.
The fault for the driving behavior rests on the driver. The fault for failing to educate the importance of following the law for the driver, to me anyway, rests on the parents.
I guess we need to put warning stickers on EVERYTHING then. Obsurd. Similarly…
So we all (most) drive every day on streets that have curves right. Then one day someone decides a particular curve is extraordarily dangerous and puts it to the proper authoritys (hwy dept for example) and it’s voted and or approved. But before the warning sign is actually installed, someone runs of the road and gets killed. Then who’s fault is it? And should we put warning signs on every curve?
I say [censored] NO !!!
Come on people life is dangerous, take some personal responsability. (not directed at this forum but sue happy folks in general.)
I agree with you and Dan. Some people take the responsibility of operateing a 80MPH 1-2 ton bullet far too lightly.
Fortunately, liability for accidents is not determined, and should not be determined, by looking for moral flaws in someone’s parents.
The fault of not being educated in something would then rest on the shoulders of the person/entity who was supposed to do the educating then, and on the shoulders of the person/entity who was seeking the education but didn’t (for whatever reason) successfully learn from the educator. Or does that not make sense?
The version of the article I saw does not state anyone was going 80 mph. It doesn’t state that there were warning signs down the road.
There may have been all the reasons in the world why these kids were “at fault”?
Problem is, you don’t know enough about it yet.
Is there some reason, everytime someone gets killed in these things, to just make stuff up to try and justify something as tragic as death?
I think it’s sick, frankly. Like a bunch of vultures, all smug and ready to determine guilt – not factually, but on moral grounds, as though some people deserve to get killed, and others don’t. Well, if this was an ambulance, would this discussion be different?
Wait till the facts are in. Then you can have all the reason in the world for your learned judgments.
There is a old Post war railroad sign that showed two colors, red for blood and danger and black for death admonishing people not to try and beat the train.
The short skid marks immediately before the impact indicates to me that the driver probably knew he was done and whatever happens is going to either kill or hurt.
As far as Im concerned these kids paid the price for thier foolishness. They wont be the last to pay it. Society today is not family centric and has eroded quite a bit since the 50’s we will continue to see our young folk lose thier life or futures with these kinds of wild and foolish behavior.
My resolve is only hardened by my own experiences and frankly I should not be allowed to have had the life I did. Im just sad for the parents who must live with the loss every day wondering what could have been done to save thier children’s lives. I dont think that the children were destined to follow the laws and stay home and obey the rules anyway so the blame must rest with them regardless of thier age.
What I do hope is that the remaining survivors walk out of the hospital, heal at home and work to help others thier age to prevent any more accidents of this nature.
That train should have been split at the crossing, but I leave that up to the court to decide. That is why we have Judges and Jury.
Those Jeep Cherokees are plastic and break easy. Not exactly a choice for a joyride. But they took what was availible regardlesss of what the laws, permissions or licensing.
Fair and true enough Micheal. My point was regarding the case I’d specified.
Link to story in Baytown Sun paper:
http://baytownsun.com/story.lasso?ewcd=c001f4f881de48ef
Link to chat on Baytown newspaper website:
http://baytownsun.com/forums.lasso?eda=6437be698d7ce75b952d958d20cb6307&emi=91315f052fee976f&eti=4aae8e92005a4b99
I am not taking a position on who was at fault with this accident. For all I know, the car they hit did have reflectors. According to the larger article, there was no stop sign, but even with crossbuscks alone, a driver must exercise enough caution to avoid getting struck by a train or running into the side of one. The crossings that I have seen with just crossbucks have an advance warning sign indicating a railroad crossing ahead. I might assume that this crossing had that advance-warning feature since it would seem to be essential to the logic of expecting some reaction time even for a vehicle traveling 30 mph.
It is easy to assume they were speeding because of the loaded nature of the description, “joyriding in a stolen car,” but without witnesses, I doubt we will ever know how fast they were going. I would not assume they were speeding or overdriving their headlights just because the impact tore the top off of the Jeep. That could happen at impact speeds perhaps as low as 30 mph depending on the size of the vehicle and the size of the gap under the tank car. The rounded shape of tank cars probably facilitate vehicles running under them.
The train was not moving. If a train were hard to see, I would think it would be slightly easier to see if it were moving as opposed to being stopped. This may have simply been a black tank car without reflectors, a perfect example of the road hazard that has been identified by the FRA.
Anything that tears off a roof is speeding.
I have never seen destructive accidents at 40mph or below UNLESS the vehicle loses the pavement and gravity takes over for the big drop off the bridge or whatever. Usually in my experience they will run under and through the decpitation barrier of a semi trailer and have thier heads chopped off at the neck and lose a substantial part of their roofs in the process. Not that any of that matters.
At 80 mph you are going to require about… 2 seconds to see, understand mentally the hazard, make a decision and react, another 1 to 3 seconds for the brakes to take hold and 3 more seconds for the physics of the stop to work out considering the factor of traction, availible braking horsepower, pavement condition, tires, mass of vehicle, speed etc etc etc. Basically you need about 8 seconds to stop. I can bring a 40 ton vehicle to a stop in under 10 seconds but need ALOT of room to do it.
For a car, 60 to zero is anywhere from 110-150 feet distance and at night you dont even have that much to see much less react in time to make the stop happen.
Im betting that the skid marks in question is a hell of alot closer to that big bad railcar than 150 feet.
I have personally witnessed cars totally destroyed by extremely high speeds while the drunkard staggering around going “Ow that hurt” is being chased down by angry paras who want to slap gauze on his cuts.
There is a whole set of work called “Accident investigation” that will run it’s course and can probably reconstruct the speeds involved.
Reading the chat, the community weights against the children sneaking out against curfew rules at night. Apparently that is far more important than the actual wreck itself.
Slow your roll Michael. I was refering to drivers in general not this specific case. Sorry, mabee I should have been mare clear about that.[;)]
I grew up on railroad property, with the grade crossing – the only way out – a couple hundred yards down the track. To get to town, there were two more grade crossings. Twice in my life, I have been caught completely by surprise at night by flatcars – moving flatcars, but nevertheless completely caught by surprise as I could see the lights on the houses on the other side of the crossing, and even oncoming car lights, as plain as day … but not the flatcars because it was in fact night. Put some hard use to the brakes.
The train meets that occured there never blocked the crossing. I had always understood the rule that 1) standing trains are hard to see at night, and 2) emergency vehicles need access at all times. Don’t block the crossing.
At about 11 every night, #263 would pull up by the house, before the crossing on the siding, waiting for #262, even though the full length of the siding was mostly beyond the crossing. As soon as they saw the quad lights of #262’s Little Joe, they would start to move and it was an elegant choreography – #262 would be just clearing the west switch as #263 would be reaching it, and switching on to the mainline. Neither train was ever stopped on the crossing. Probably saw or heard that, literally, over 6,000 times in my life.
Not once was that crossing blocked at night by a standing train. Whether there was a rule about it, or they were just being nice guys, I don’t know. Took it for granted and never asked.
I have had similar experiences. Not any close calls like you but I can see how it could happen, especially with unskilled drivers like in Houston. I try to NEVER let my brakeing distance excede my line of CLEAR sight. It’s hard to do here on the freeways but in rural areas it’s a must obey rule for me. (IMHO a no brainer for anyone wishing to avoid wrecks)
for what it’s worth… there may or may not have been a stop sign at the crossing; someone said there wasn’t. However, my friends, a crossbuck IS a stop sign, unless it is associated with active signals. So much for that one.
Second, most folks overdrive their headlights (I’m as guilty as the next guy, although I try) but very very few realise that they are doing that. That is why reflectors are helpful: they pick up and return the headlight’s light at a significantly greater distance than an ordinary object would (say, for instance, a pedestrian or a deer or something soft like that). However, one has to assume that if one isn’t going to stop for a stop sign (they’re reflectorized in most cases) one also has to assume that it is unlikely that a correct analysis will be made of a set of reflectors, or at least not in time to stop.
I may be wrong, but I don’t believe crossbucks require a stop like a stop sign. Crossbucks mean the same thing as a yield sign.
To me anything with a cross buck MEANS STOP, LOOK and LISTEN
They were that way when I was a young child growing up along the line where there were quite a few of these crossbucks marked with the words “STOP, Look and LISTEN”
They have always been that way. It may have been lost to modern times where you need to spend large amounts of money to save the drivers from their own stupidity around rail crossings.