Here’s a story about a police cruiser parked on some tracks. The thing gets tagged by a passenger train. But no one seems to know why the car was on the tracks. Couldn’t they just ask they officer? I mean they must know who was driving, no? Maybe they do things differently in Canada.
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/577183
Cheers,
Doug
Yes we park on the tracks all the time…what’s wrong with that?
He wanted a new police car? [(-D]
Canadians do it the same as everyone else----Toronto, just does it differently because, well, it is Toronto!!
Folks don’t think this is something not so common.
In 1996 I hit a brand new Mingo Co.WVa sheriff cruiser that was stuck on some rail laying on the ground.
It seems the old rail which had been replaced, had been covered up by some fresh dumped ballast.
So when we came around the curve in Williamson…BANG…it wasn’t stuck any longer.It knocked it out of the way by about 50 ft. .
Thank God the deputy sheriff was out of the car when we hit it.
The clue as to the “why” is found in the narrative. An officer had been wounded by bad guys with a shotgun. This brings LOTS of PO-lice attention, and the responding officers are really focused on the task of locating, stopping, and catching the bad guys. Bad guys have this tendency to run when the police cars pull up, so if an officer saw someone near the tracks matching the description his response would have been to get that cruiser stopped and to get out after the suspect.
The response of the supervisor is likely one that was made at the scene. A crunched cruiser would have brought the media to the scene, and with all that was going on (remember, an officer had been shot), the supervisor likely hadn’t yet had the time to ask why that particular parking spot was chosen. The media usually expects full information from the police spokesman at the scene, and often it may be some time until the truth of the matter can be determined. That question will be asked of the officer and all witnesses in the ensuing internal investigation.
So… a wise choice by the officer - likely not. Tied to the excitement of the incident - likely yes. Internal discipline and training processes are set up to address those things. The more important questions would likely concern the welfare of the officer who was shot, whether or not all the b
In the follow-up posts someone who knows the area noted that there are several tracks in a poorly lit area. The officer may have thought he was in the clear between the tracks. The story notes the car was only “a little bit” in the way of the train, which I suspect means the train hit like a corner of the car that was in the right-of-way, so it wasn’t like the car was hit broadside while straddling the rails.
I remember the story from years back of fire fighters fighting a fire at a building on one side of the tracks, with the nearest parking area and fire hydrants being on the other side of the tracks (IIRC there were like 4-5 tracks). They didn’t take time to dig a little between the ties to put the hoses under the rail, so of course the first train to come thru cut all the hoses.
I remember seeing that on TV’s Bloopers & Practical Jokes years ago.
Kevin
I suspect the officer’s involved were availing themselves of the Canadian version of the Miranda warning. Fortunately, I don’t have any personal experience having it read to me, only what I see on TV shows. But I always get a chuckle at one part, we say “you have the right to retain and instruct counsel” instead of “you have the right to speak to a lawyer”. I always think it sounds so quaint.
AgentKid
Back in the olden days when the RRs weren’t as cooperative with local authorities, when firefighters around here needed to string hoses across the tracks, they would just throw some chains across the rails as well…
Zug-
Would that trip the signaling system or do something else?