First, my heart goes out the families of those lost. I am deeply sorry for your loss.
To business. So a bus drives through a functioning warning gate at a level crossing and nails a passenger train. Train derails, bus is severely damaged, six people are dead. By all accounts the train was there first, and all the warning lights were working properly. A few scattered stories mention the bus driver having some sort of medical issue prior to the accident.
Seems pretty clear-cut, right? So why do we get headlines like these:
The media basically looks for headlines that sell.
Several years ago, there was a train-school bus crash near the Tennessee-Georgia state line. Every news story that I saw on TV or read about the accident focused on the bus going over a crossing that only had crossbucks. Dan Rather on CBS even started his lead-in with “No warning lights! No warning gates!” However, what had me wondering in that crash was what was being said about the engineer, and that was that he put the train into emergency as soon as he saw the bus. If the bus had stopped at the crossing, there would be no reason to hit the brakes. After a while, I saw one last news story on the crash saying that the security camera on the bus showed that the driver never stopped at the crossing. After that one story, nothing more was ever mentioned by the media that I saw. No other TV stations, newspapers, etc. mentioned that the bus never stopped.
Anymore, I take everything I hear on the news with a grain of salt. Facts can easily get left out or changed for the benefit of others rather than really report what happened.
Thats the media for you. Anything for a viewer or reader.
A few months back there was a roll off dumpster truck that was hit after the driver tried to beat the train through a crossing, caught no less on a local companies security camera. For days afterward, headlines about the deadly train crash when a truck struck a garbage truck.
#1 nobody died
#2 the train never strayed from the gauge, so obviously the truck was where it wasn’t supposed to be.
#3 CCT cameras don’t lie!
Don Henley’s song “dirty laundry” pretty much sums up that industry. The truth is often too boring. [sigh]
How about instead: Ottawa Bus Crash: How Safe Are Transit Beese?
(Beese is the plural used on the Trains forum).
But since the train wreck is engraved in the public consciousness because of the early days of railroading, we still see these headlines…and that traffic accidents happen with alarming regularity.
This article seems to have got the facts right, check paragraph 6:
"One passenger on the bus said the driver did not seem to notice the oncoming train or that the track-level signals were flashing. He said some passengers tried to warn the driver before the collision.
“From what I can tell the bus driver did not notice that these train-tracks signal lights were on and the gates were down. People screamed on the bus shortly before the crash because he was not stopping,”
Good for Reuters; time to check the drivers log book, how many hours was he driving??
If, instead, the bus driver had run a red traffic signal (no gates, no horns) and broadsided a semi loaded with structural steel, I wonder how the headline writers would have handled that…
What we SHOULD have seen is something like:
Bus driver fails to yield right-of-way. Six dead.
The only trouble is, that wouldn’t stir up the lemmings, so it wouldn’t sell much advertising.
After all, isn’t that what journalism is - a means to sell advertising space? Heaven forfend that they actually present facts.
(As for the locomotive having been involved in an earlier fatal encounter, maybe the railroad should stencil, "Darwin Enforcer, under the road number…)
Chuck (Cynic modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
It’s the same everywhere. News articles always make it sound like the train veered out of the way and deliberately hit the victim who was standing/walikg/driving/stopped on the tracks. It’s also common for news stories to be written with inanimate objects performing actions, even when it’s not about trains: “Train strikes pedestrian” “SUV kills driver” “The White House says…” And for our Northern friends, I’ve seen this one: “Ottawa says…” so the whole city speaks, not just a spokesperson for the Parliment? Equivalent of our “WHite House says…”. I’ve pretty sure buildings and cities don’t make statements. Or even have opinions on anything. The RESIDENTS might. Someone in government might make a statement. Heck I’ve even seen “US says” or “Canada says” (or pick any country). So countries can talk to each other without those pesky carbon-based units as intermediaries, cool!
Apparantly this is the type of writing taught these days.
Ha! I love it! Haven’t looked at the Darwin Awards for years, but I’ll be headed there next.
“Durr…train big, me small! It move out of way or me will smack it!”
God help those who lose their lives through no fault of their own (like the poor passengers in this case), but why is this such a hard thing for some to figure out? When a 2-ton steel box (or a 180 lb sack of stupid) gets in the way of a 6000 ton battering ram that takes a mile to stop and has no steering wheel, the outcome is somewhat predictable…
This may have nothing to do with stupid, but may be a case of diabetes winning over a driver. Whatever the cause, if it can be largely attributed to driver error, and my guess is that it will be only partially so (remember the diabetes, or maybe some other sleep/health/distraction issue), this is an instance where the other dead and afflicted maybe could have done much better with an autonomous conductive device.
We should have begun to gradually eliminate grade level crossings 50 years ago. People are too stupid to be allowed to drive across railroad main lines.
Yes, the media is about selling eyes and ears to advertisers. Editors usually know little to nothing about railroads. So you get headlines/stories like these.
As an occasional media activist, I’ve found editors and reporters are usually receptive to factual correction in cases like this. Call, email or write politely about what you find in error. You might be surprised at the reception you get, as most at least try to get the basics right.
Letters to the editor are also effective and are often printed even if critical of a story.
All too often we blame “them” when we should use our insight to help others understand the story better. Not that I don’t blame “them” when all else fails in getting a suitable response, but change usually only comes about when you work for it.
It has been said that in most cases, the train is hit by the interloper. Rarely does the train hit something/someone, because they have to be there first.
This is going to be a complicated investigation, as the driver is dead, the train was travelling under its posted speed while slowing to make a stop, the gates were down and the lights were working. The bus also has to make a turn before crossing the track. The TSB has already confirmed that the level crossing met every legal and technical requirement. You can read all about it here
AFIK, Diabetics cannot be licensed to drive in Canada, or so I was told by a Canadian physician. There must be more to it than that, but up there such controls are far more restrictive than we would tollerate here in the United States.
I personally feel that the “black box” of the BUS will show a mechanical malfunction of the brakes or similar. All the reports of the drivers physical condition (that I have seen) have been good.
Too many if’s in that accident,in Quebec,to eye witnesses,passengers,on the bus,said that the driver acted like he did not see,the lights,the gates,or the train before impact and kept rolling,even after being screamed at to stop,suicide maybe…If there was problem with the brakes,they would have gone on themselves,for they are air brakes,it would have happened,long before the bus got to the crossing…
The New Deal actually started to eliminate grade crossings 80 years ago -with some strange results.
One county in Pennsylvania received a grant, specifically intended for grade crossing elimination. The only railroad track in the county, the far end of a little-used East Broad Top spur, didn’t cross any roads…
As a diabetic, I can understand the possibility that the bus driver had a sudden debilitating incident. What I don’t understand is, why was he driving a bus? The FAA would never have allowed him onto the control deck of a commercial airliner - and airliners have co-pilots. (Drive private vehicle, 3 ton limit, OK. Drive heavy vehicle, or vehicle carrying passengers for hire, NYET!!!)
As I understand it, in this crash, the bus drove into the side of the train, not that the bus was on the tracks and hit by the train - if so, you REALLY have to wonder. Although there is a Youtube video filmed from on board an excusrion train of some sort where a car comes driving up and slams right into the side of the train - how you miss seeing a HUGE object directly in front of you remains a mystery. Perhaps target fixation - driver so focused on the train the just head right towards it.
In a way I hope it WAS some sort of debilitating condition and not the kind of sheer gross negligance and ignorance it would take to make it happen where everything was in fine working shape. Because frankly, there is absolutely no excuse that anyone should be struck by a train at a crossing outside of mechanical failure of the vehicle they are driving or some medical condition.