I’ve wanted to say this for a long time and needed a time and place to say it…today is the day. First of all, Fire Sgt. I’m glad your folks are OK.
I live near San Antonio, and quite often on the nightly news there is a similar story. So I guess I wonder…why don’t ALL the railroad crossing accidents make it to this forum? I’m sure there are dozens of them every day all across the country. They all seem to have similar circumstances and often have tragic outcomes.
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I think we have to look at the county or city for this one. most towns and citys train tracks came along well before the car or truck and there were no red lights to hold them up.
Most tracks were protected by a crossing guard in the early days. As time went on cars and trucks started to have problems with crossings like this one becouse of a new fangled item called a red light. The county and city have traffic engineers that need to make changes to such crossings to make them safer.
More spacing is needed between the train gates and the red lights. This same situation in spacing was taken care of just south of Birmingham, Alabama and has saved many lives.
I remember the rear of a school bus cought in this situation not to long ago.
I hope and pray the best to all that were involved.
Mart
OK, FF Sarge, you asked for comments.
First, I’m glad your elderly folks came out of this ordeal OK. Both for them and the train crew. I’m sure you know you have a very tough decision ahead of you regarding your dad’s future driving a vehicle.
As we have already read, there is more than one version of what happened, which is not unusual. When this will come to a conclusion – either in or out of court – it really doesn’t matter whether or not the driver “stopped on the tracks”. What does matter is that it appears he was inside the “danger zone” when the gates dropped – his entire vehicle forward of the rear bumper. That is pretty evident because the lowered crossing gate on his side of the road was behind his vehicle.
This is another instance where installing a cab cams on a locomotives will eventually be well worth the price paid by the railroad.
Finally, as a retired FF/P, sir, the smarmy comments in your critical response about the police officer’s handling of the incident, spelling and “alleged dyslexia” coming from you, person who identifies himself as a 20-year FF/EMT, are completely unprofessional and churlish. You should know better. And maybe now you do.