Check this out:
http://jalopnik.com/train-still-crushes-it-in-latest-train-vs-car-competit-1556872654
Driver goes around a train crossing barricade and gets smoked by an oncoming train.
Houston put in a light rail system. They run a public service campaign to raise public awareness. Still, there have been 18 collisions.
Is “stupid” a requirement for getting a drivers license in Houston or is it just something that living there does to people?
Not sure, but as I inch down I-45 in the morning contemplating how yet another accident has occurred in traffic that is rolling down a straight road in the same direction, I tend to lean toward ‘stupid’.
I think there must be something in the water here, because just the other day I was the unlucky bastard who was stuck behind the train tracks as the gates came down and I halfheartedly contemplated doing just what that driver did. Except this was a “real” train, that would have demolished me and my Camry.
Of course I didn’t actually end up doing it, but the thought did cross my mind.
Houston will never cease to amaze me with how stupid the drivers are.
Having driven extensively in Houston, I can sort of see why this happens. The light rails are, in my opinion, too unobtrusive. They’re sunk right down at street level and they just don’t “feel” like real train tracks (and the city has plenty of regular tracks in use). You feel more like you’re driving over a speed bump or a manhole cover - an obstacle in the road but not a danger. It doesn’t help that street repairs in Houston are always going on somewhere - drivers just get used to driving over and around obstacles without thinking about it.
In the longer version of the video, it looks like he heads over the tracks as the gate is descending, then turns around and goes back for his incomplete second crossing.
What the hell? Was he playing chicken?
18? Ever since we put in that monument to bureaucratic stupidity that we call the toy train, there have been more than a hundred collisions involving it. Pure government stupidity. A monorail would have worked better, but no - we had to have a grade level train because we thought we stood a chance of getting a Summer Olympics some time back.
It’s not just regular drivers. Pedestrians (not just the suicidal) and cyclists have sometimes decided the rails are a good way to travel. And Metro drivers trying to beat lights have gotten hit, too.
Having the rail at ground level was a mistake. Also, not having it parallel the highways was also a mistake. The rail cuts access to some of the most heavily traveled arterial roads in town and limits the use of arms to ward off traffic. Ridership has regularly exceeded expectations, so there’s that, but Houston area public transit is a hodge-podge defined by a severe lack of central planning and severe opposition to public transit in the first place.
Freeways making up a + sign, an X, and almost 3 whole loops, add in some major six lane streets, and it STILL was a PITA to drive in Houston. On the plus side, at least I got to listen to a lot of good music in my car.
(lived in Bellaire, Pasadena, and Friendswood for over 18 years)
Sorry, but this is fucking retarded. The only part of your post that reads true is the highlighted portion, but that’s no excuse either.
“Too unobtrusive” my ass. There were flashing lights and (i’m guessing) bells, and the guy had to drive a slalom course around a goddamn boom gate in order to make it across the tracks. There’s no excusing that bullshit. If the driver were the only person in the car, and there were no danger to the train passengers, i could shrug and write it off an another Darwin Award entry, but every time someone does this, they put dozens or hundreds of people at risk.
Morons like Clothahump can blame the government all they want, but once the system is in place you’d think that even Texans would be smart enough to understand that you should try to avoid placing your vehicle in front of the moving train. If you’re retarded enough to drive through a level crossing in front of a train, you deserve whatever happens to you.
Time to revive Dumb Ways To Die.
One of the things that I liked about Arizona is that there was a “stupid driver” law. That meant that if you did something stupid like drive past flash flood warnings and then have to be rescued…you had to pay for it.
I think they were working on something like that for the light rail trains in Phoenix a while back because so many people would try to beat them.
I’ve driven in a lot of different states and I have to agree that Houston drivers are the most WTF drivers I’ve ever seen.
A couple of days ago, we were waiting in traffic because there was an accident in the intersection. There were a couple of police cars, an ambulance, lights flashing, all sorts of stuff saying that there would be no left turn, so all the cars were merging right to get around the problem.
All except for this one jackass in a beat up pick up truck who sped up on the left, forced his way into the right lane and then made a left on the red light.
We weren’t close enough to see the cops rolling their eyes at each other, but I know they did. How could they possibly help it?
(And yeah, one of them jumped in his car and took off after jackass. I have no further info.)
You may find it retarded but it’s true. It’s simple reality. We go through the day doing most of what we’re doing at a subconscious level. If we had to stop and think about everything we were doing, we’d be stuck in a mental gridlock.
And that certainly applies to driving. Remember the first time you practiced driving a car? It seemed like it was impossible - you had to do all these different things at the same time. But you practiced and learned and pushed it down to the subconscious level - and now you can drive a car without thinking about it. In fact, driving is one of those things like typing or playing the piano that you have to learn how to do without conscious thought in order to do it well.
For whatever reason, the light rail tracks in Houston don’t seem to subconsciously register as a danger to many Houston drivers. Maybe, as I suggested, it’s because they’re different than the regular rail tracks people that have gotten used to.
I’ll disagree with this in particulars but not in spirit.
The problem in Houston actually IS government - the dumbass local politicians who, over the course of generations, have actively worked to hamper any potential public transit options to the point that any attempt to insert any new mass transit options are now ridiculously expensive. Former Mayor Bob Lanier was a big example of this. Now that we figured out (like Dallas did decades ago) that maybe some local rail might not be so bad, it’s nearly impossible to do so in a sensible way.
So, we get 10 lane highways but we no longer have good options for local rail corridors along those major highways. We tore those existing rails up and used the land badly, resulting in light rail lines along already congested local surface streets. I’m not even sure it’s better than nothing. I might feel differently if/when those lines get to even one of the airports. And/or if that private business group can get a Dallas to Houston high speed passenger line going.
Also, a lot of intersections along the light rail line don’t actually have boom gates. There are flashing warning lights but no actual gates. And there are turn lanes directly on the rails in some spots in the Med Center(?!). Doesn’t mean many drivers aren’t stupid beyond belief, but it does almost guarantee accidents will occur on a regular basis.
Pure sophistry. Total idiocy.
Yes, we learn to do things in a mechanical fashion. The act of driving is, in many ways, a subconscious skill. But guiding two tons of metal at speeds of up to 70 miles an hour means that you also have a responsibility to pay attention to what the fuck you’re doing.
Also, your argument about driving as a mechanical, subconscious act actually helps to make my point for me. Even if i’m “driving without thinking about it,” the mechanical and subconscious nature of the task means that i automatically move my foot to the brake if i see a red light or a stop sign. That same subconscious also causes me to remain stationary at a red light, even if i can clearly see that the coast is clear.
And this goes double, or triple, or whatever, for a flashing, ringing, boom gate regulated level crossing.
What that driver did, driving around the gate and past the flashing lights and ringing bells, takes a conscious act of will. It is not the action of automated, mechanical, subconscious driving. It was, in fact, the exact opposite: the willful act of a selfish asshole.
Great Antibob, i’m willing to take your word that there are some bad crossings. I’m not from Houston, i’ve never been to Houston, and i’m sure that you’re also right about the poor urban planning that has contributed to the situation. But, to be honest, even a crossing with only lights and no boom gates should be sufficient to cause all but the most dunderheaded to hit the brakes, and the guy in the OP’s linked video has absolutely no excuse whatsoever.
I seem to remember that when the Blue Line first opened in Los Angeles in 1990 (it is also light rail) there were many accidents at grade crossings. Those continued until Angelenos got used to the trains, which took a few years.
Nowadays there are far fewer accidents than there were in those early days.
I was glad to see that video; the collision delayed my commute home. Metro had to send a couple of trains southward on the northbound track to pick us up. It was a mess but actually handled well. Collisions used to be more common–at least they’re rarely fatal. This driver was probably Not From Here…
Mass transit has grown slowly because Houston is an auto age city. Residents of The Heights & Bellaire look longingly at the medians that were once trolley tracks. (And I grew up on the coastal prairies, wishing The Interurban still connected Houston & Galveston.) But–who’d want to ride when they can drive? Slightly shady Mayor Lanier didn’t help by redirecting taxes meant for Metro. And federal transit funding was blocked for years by Crook Tom Delay. (Thanks, Sugarland voters! Enjoy the drive.)
The line built so far–the Red Line was extended last December–and the two being completed this year–serve Houston Inside The Loop. It’s helped my commute. And the train was used heavily, just recently, by fans & workers at the Livestock Show & Rodeo. The collision happened near the Reliant station–soon The NRG station–used by Real Cowboys, Rhinestone Cowgirls & families–many Not From Here…
I remember long Sunday drives to look at the decaying bit of monorail built out South Main. There wasn’t money to make it real. Subways would not fit our terrain & occasional flooding. Really, Houston drivers have mostly learned…
cant slap std with std
people at times, are always trying the save some time
The idea of Houston hosting a summer Olympics is one of the all-time examples of governmental stupidity.
Though it would have been fun in a perverse way to watch the marathon and make bets on the first runner to keel over (they could run it in the middle of the night and the heat and humidity would still be lethal).
A few years back, the good citizens of Madison decided that trains passing through town were too noisy, and they passed a law saying trains couldn’t blow those god-awful air horns within city limits.
A couple of years, a slew of additional accidents and and 5 deaths later, they rescinded the law.
I found this interesting because … why would just the horns matter so much? The accidents didn’t take place at unmarked crossings, there were lights and bells and gates and the whole nine yards, but somehow everything failed without the fucking giant horns.
Boyo Jim: I wonder, did the accidents happen because a train was stopped and another one was coming on an adjacent track? In Chicago we get a number of accidents where one train is stopped so people think the flashing lights, etc., are for that - but really there’s another train barreling down the other track. These days they blare on the horn when approaching any crossing where there’s another train stopped.