They were taking photographs on one of the bridges close to Refugio. Of the four people on the bridge two got run over and were critically hurt, one was knocked clear into the side of a hill and was killed, one was able to get off the bridge before being struck.
Additional information: SANTA BARBARA, CALIF. — Several of the people struck by a train on the Southern California coast over the weekend were visiting scholars at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
One woman was killed and two others injured Saturday when they were caught on a bridge overlooking to the Pacific Ocean as the Amtrak train bore down. A man was able to make it to safety.
i consider your headline abusive, and will ask that this posting be removed unless you edit it. amtrak did not kill. these people died because of their own illegal, dangerous, and foolhardy actions. a proper headline is three tespassers died and one injured when an amtrak train arrive unexpectadly – or something like that.
Don’t you know that trains swerve just to kill people and hit cars & trucks? Seriously, your headline makes you sound like the kind that would attempt to rob a building, get caught, and then blame the building owner for having a window that you could climb through.
This headline is not much different than what will run in local paper and go out over AP wire. While I understand your point methinks your skin is too thin.
“+ a few”; They schould be using the word trespassing. (but probably won’t, being they typically don’t believe in personal accountability in that state either.)
Too bad, people. Get a life. Amtrak should have sounded their horn at least a half mile before a bridge, just like freight trains do before they enter a tunnel, especially when in this section of track, which is closely followed by Hwy 101. They know where the bridges are. Is pushing the horn button a couple of times so tiring to the engineer’s hand? Stupid people cross the tracks all the time here, but is Amtrak ignorant of this? I doubt it. I am putting the blame where it lies. And if a freight train had killed those clueless people, I would be blaming UP. It’s called being corporately proactive! My point is that no train should have arrived unexpectedly, passenger or freight. Especially here.
And just because you find my headline abusive, is no reason to remove it, just because you disagree with how I write it. Who are you, anyway? Certainly, no better than me.
I see how it is. When somebody doesn’t agree with your opinion, yet presents a reasoned argument for his own opinion, he is suddenly branded a troll. Call me all the names all you want. It doesn’t change the strength of my argument in the slightest, especially if that’s all you can do against it.
I’m not taking a position here, but I think it is ridiculous for there to always be a knee-jerk reaction of blaming the bearer of bad news: blaming the OP, blaming the media, blaming the victim, ad nauseam. It makes it sound as though human lives are less important than a railroad.
However, I also wonder where Buxtehude (BTW: great handle! s/he must either be from the town of the same name near Hamburg or be a fan of the baroque composer) got the information about the absence of a horn to warn. I looked at about six news stories, none of which mentioned that
Thank you. If Amtrak does sound their horn as a matter of policy, and did here, then my argument is completely moot. To my knowledge, they don’t, but they should, if only because they must know by experience how many stupid people cross throughout this section of railroad, and how dangerous an area it is. If any article actually says that Amtrak did sound the horn, then I’ll change the headline as fast as my little fingers can type the difference. Otherwise, there are sins of commission, but equally of omission as well. This situation was of the latter type.
Well aside from the actual blame, it seems to me that the controversy of how the thread title is worded is just a matter of semantics. Saying someone got killed by a train is not the same as saying the train murdered them. If someone is reported to have been electrocuted is that unfairly blaming electricity?
Interestingly, lots of case law going back to the previous turn of the century and before to the effect of “you play on railroad track, you don’t win when big bad train runs you over.” An oddity in California law, but the courts have been pretty consistent in tossing trespasser claims. I know UP is pretty strong on fighting those suits and a case out of Sacramento several years ago was pretty well on point in upholding a summary judgment against plaintiff in a case remarkably similar to what was alluded to here.
ChuckCobleigh: Sorry… I am unable to follow the “who” of your “plaintiff” and the result of the case you mention. Who sued whom, for what reason, and who won?
The particular case was an unpublished 3rd District Court of Appeal opinion in the past few years affirming a summary judgment against a plaintiff who was crossing a railroad bridge near Roseville and was struck by a UP freight. The opinion included a lengthy recitation of California case law which in essence held that a railroad track itself is sufficient warning of danger to trespassers. It is not citable, which means that nothing in it was new law nor a new interpretation or application. I’ll see if I can find it on the sleeping computer.
EDIT: After awakening the sleeping beast, I found two similar cases, one being the case I mentioned above. Turns out that a month after releasing the unpublished opinion, the Third District ordered the case published: Christoff v. Union Pacific Railroad Company, 134 Cal App 4th 118. This is obtainable online from the California Courts website, starting at their link to LexisNexus: http://www.lexisnexis.com/clients/CACourts/.
My favorite quote in the discussion is this from an 1893 case:
“A railroad track upon which trains are constantly run is itself a warning to any person who has reached years of discretion, and who is possessed of ordinary intelligence, that it is not safe to walk upon it, or near enough to it to be struck by a passing train . . . .” (Holmes v. South Pac Coast Ry. Co. (1893) 97 Cal. 161, 167…"
The Christoff case was cited in Lindsley v. Union Pacific Railroad (unpub. opn H030587, 6th District Court of Appeal, 2008) where again, trestle trespassers sued the railroad, the city, and one other defendant and had summary judgment entered against th