You just cannot fix stupid.
Rich
Quite the load of confetti sent flying !
Thanks for sharing.
- Paul North.
The following is in no way meant as a slight against the forum members who drive the big-rigs for a living, as I would surmise that you guys are much more attuned to the perils of transportation.
Requirements needed to be a big-rig driver in 2012:
- Able to breathe in AND out.
I remember my dad telling me (back when I first learned how to drive), that if the weather is bad, or visibility is poor, just follow a big truck as those guys are the professionals on the road. Nowadays I stay as far away from them as possible.
But it wasn’t the whole truck, only the last couple of feet. Anyone can made a mistake. You are such a perfectionist.
I’ll still follow them in snow or heavy rain - not because they are ‘professionals’ but their trucks clear a big foot print on the highway surface.
http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/p/2350896/reply.aspx , A quick google search for “cars hit by trains” turned up 145,000,000 hits. This was the 3rd in line. I guess you don’t even have to breath to drive a car, in or out.
Why is it every time a truck gets hit with a train it gets posted here and every body has to say how dumb truck drivers are? What about car drivers? Studys show that of all car-truck fatal crashes, 86% are caused by the car driver. We know crashes happen, and nothing that is said here is going to change a thing. This topic has been talked into the ground on this forum, mostly the same thing over and over. But every time some one finds a news story , it gets posted and the same things are said again, just like it never happend before.
Zardoz, last I checked it was 2013. Tim
People here in four wheelers go around the gates all of the time,18 wheelers gets stuck or gets the back hit on crossings.
This one came with cool video.
Plus the whole professional driver thing… and trucks are large enough to pose a risk of injury to the train crew, among others.
But mostly the cool video.
Perhaps you haven’t followed this forum enough. Car drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians old and young are all labeled as winners of the “Darwin award.”
The truck driver was TOTALLY STUPID. Too bad that the train only got the rear of the trailer and not hm. He deserved to be in for a Darwin ward.
The truck driver was TOTALLY HUMAN. Too bad the train didn’t miss the whole truck and trailer. There is probably a family that is happy they don’t have a Darwin Award to display on the mantle. I hope the crew of the train is okay, both physically and emotionally. And the same goes for the truck driver.
(I am a member of the same species as both the truck driver and the train crew.)
It is an expression of frustration by the industry and its fans. It is a long range solution for the crossing problem whereby all drivers will be killed off by trains. Notice that no Darwin award was given the signal maintainers in Chicago who tested their work with full speed Amtrak train, and found a flaw in their work that killed a test subject.
All truck drivers are not idiots. But the one in this thread is.
So Bucyrus, show us a study that compares the number of trucks hit vs. number of screw ups by signal maintainers. I will be waiting patiently.
That driver was VERY stupid.
There was plenty of warning that a train was coming: HORN, gates, HORN… How can anyone not hear a 100dB horn blast?
There is no way that the truck should have been on the crossing when a train was coming. The driver is lucky that HE didn’t get clobbered. A truck driver of all people should know better. A truck driver operates a 10 ton plus piece of equipment. You’d think that a truck driver would know not to fool with an oncoming train that outweighs his truck by a factor of 40 or so.
I hope he lost his commercial driver’s license, and hopefully his regular one too.
Racing a train to the crossing is the most common form of train-auto accidents. The driver is lucky he’s not DEAD.
Never, EVER do what he did.
I promise I will never try to cross in front of a train.
Why? Because they are.
Same requirements.
For 2014, due to the ongoing driver shortage, the DOT is considering lessening the requirements.
A long time, you will wait.
Yeah, I still use them as “street sweepers” to clear a path in front of me.
I suppose the negative comments about truck drivers after an incident like this come for various reasons. First, something like this is very high-profile, especially when it’s caught on camera. Secondly, most people assume the driver of a big rig is going to be a cut above the average driver, considering the skill it takes to handle one of those things, and are bitterly disappointed when they find out it’s not necessarily so.
There’s all kind of truckers out there, just like there’s all kinds of regular drivers. Some truckers are going to be hard-core professionals who can make a rig do anything but sing. The others, well…
Never criticize a truck driver until you have driven a million miles in his place… And I am a driver, you four-wheelers do just as dumb things…