I suppose that actual ipod buds could theoretically be worn that way, but they don’t fit in my ears (my ears are seriously tiny), so I have to buy the ones that go into the ear, and even using the smallest size, they pretty much fill the ear canal. I’d probably hear a train horn, but they block out most traffic noise, and certainly all conversation.
For what it’s worth, I agree. Barring some unusual circumstance in which you end up on the tracks involuntarily and helpless (definitely not the case here), getting hit by a train is as close to deliberately self-inflicted-injury as one can get.
I’m not sympathetic to the kid. I’d offer vague condolences to his family, though.
Tragedy is when you die head first down a street drain trying to get your mobile phone.
long train runnin’?
Between the earth shaking from the trains approach, the lights all over that sucker, and a gazillion dB horn, I vote for suicide or idiot.
If he had walked about 3 feet to one side or the other, he would be alive today. Instead, he walked down the middle of the tracks, where you know the trains run.
Avoid a train is not brain science or rocket surgery.
I have to agree with Starving Artist. At least when I am wearing my earbuds, I can still hear ambient sound. If someone says something to me when I’m listening to my iPod, maybe I won’t know what they said, but I’ll certainly hear the buzz of someone talking. I can’t imagine any way ordinary earbuds could block out the sound of an oncoming train. If you were wearing noise-canceling headphones, maybe.
Even then there is a reasonable explanation IMO.
Humans are terrible at at least two things. Being aware of their surroundings. And questioning any preconcieved notions or assumptions they have made when trying to solve a logical problem.
Lets say this guy OFTEN walked along side the tracks. And he often knew he was safe doing so. He often never even bothered to look behind him because, damn he is safe because he aint on the tracks dont ya know.
But THIS day, for whatever reason, he decided to walk ON the tracks. He is walking along, and he even hears the train and feels the vibrations. But he is USED to that. And because he is in another world listening to his music, his little old brain just considers it another day of walking alongside the tracks. That busy little brain NEVER even notices that THIS time he IS walking on the tracks or thinks to ask “am I on the tracks”?
If you read accident reports regarding things like aviation, scuba, industrial accidents, mountian climbing, whatever, this is a VERY common theme. People, for whatever doing somthing just a bit different than what they normally do and it bitting them in the ass because their brains never even considered things might be a bit different from normal. As a matter of fact, its so bad the brain is often BLINDED to even the mere possibilty things might not be normal.
I don’t know where the OP lives, but the thing with train tracks is that, in many places, people don’t expect to see actual trains on them. There are so many images from movies and elsewhere of people in the back country moseying along the railroad tracks without a care in the world. Either the tracks are abandoned, or there’s only one train three times a week. Of course, they also don’t realize that a train needs far more stopping distance than a motor vehicle.
The problem with this is that rail traffic has all but exploded in recent decades; not only are the freight companies surging, but commuter rail has come back in a lot of places; even L.A. and San Diego have commuter rail systems that meet in the middle. I was astonished to learn recently that the old Escondido Branch of the Santa Fe, between Oceanside and Escondido, now hosts a commuter service. I guess somebody was maintaining all those old tracks for something after all. Still, it’s apparent to me that in many places people still don’t realize how heavy the traffic on the rails can be.
Ear buds usually fall out for me. I wear the ones that go inside but they have something that wraps around the ear.
That’s mine.
I wear mine that way, and they don’t fall out at all. These are the original earbuds that come with the iPod (or the cheap Sony ones I just replaced them with). They are too big to shove inside my ear canal. They hang on the outer ear with the speaker part in front of the ear canal.
Depends a little on the shape of your outer ear. Mine sit pretty far out from my inner ear and never fall out, but other people have trouble. It varies, I guess.
And while I agree that if you’re standing on the rails, or maybe on the ties, you’d feel the train coming, but if you’re walking on them, you could easily introduce enough vibration of your own to damp out anything from the train. Makes it doubly dumb to wear headphones on a train track.
It’s no stupider than when adults, whom you’d think would know better, try to cross the train tracks by car when the train is about 10 feet away. Then when the inevitable disaster happens (hint- the train usually is damaged less than the car) there’s a hue and cry in the media about those evil trains and why there aren’t more railroad crossing lights/bars. It’s not rocket science, folks!
Nope.
Sure, I guess that’s a possibility. For me, I’ve lived near train tracks my whole life, in New Mexico, in New Jersey, and in New York City. Yet, in all cases, I was wary of the train.
I meant to say “Was walking on the train tracks a FOOLISH act”
:smack:
No, the only FOOLISH thing that he did was not be aware of his surroundings. You can walk on the tracks, you can wear ear buds. But the reality is that there are dangers you need to be aware of.
Why would you even want to walk on the train tracks though? If you happen to be walking along them couldn’t you just walk next to them?
Lets make it illegal walk down a train track with ear buds playing. We can have cops patrolling all the train tracks to give out tickets. That would save all the children like this kid and employ tens of thousands of cops to write tickets for this law.
Because train tracks are usually elevated above the ground around them with a gutter to either side, and often reinforced with gravel to prevent erosion. The tracks themselves are the smoothest walking surface in the vicinity usually. Shouldn’t matter, as long as you pay attention. It’s kind of like walking down the middle of the street, though unlike the street you can’t be safe merely by walking against traffic.
I feel much more sorry for the TRAIN OPERATOR, who must watch helplessly as some poor dummy gets squashed. I’m sure many train operators have run over lotsa “victims”, there is very little they can do about it.
A few years ago my boyfriend was living by the railroad tracks at a place where the road split and the tracks ran between the two lanes for a bit. There was also a curve right before this spot, so there was very short visibility for the train, although they went fairly slow because of the crossings in the area.
I was driving over there one night and saw a car who had tried to pull a u-turn or something and misjudged, I assume, and ended up on the tracks with at least one of her front wheels stuck on the tracks and the whole car hung up. (Not in the crossing, in other words, on the real tracks where the rails are their normal height above surface and getting a stuck car off is no easy matter.) I saw a guy stopping his car to help her out, and it wasn’t a very busy track so I didn’t worry about it and just drove the half block to his apartment and got out and started to walk to the house when oh crap there’s the signal. No way are they going to get this car off in time with just one guy, so I ran and got my boyfriend and his friends and they hauled ass to unstick the car while I tried to stop the train. It was NOT a good day in the engineer’s life, I’m sure - after the curve in the tracks when he saw me he only had, I don’t know, five hundred feet to stop? And the guys are trying to essentially pick up a car with no stable surface under their feet, because remember this is all gravel. (With me shrieking over the train “GIVE UP AND RUN TOWARDS IT!” I don’t know why, nobody heard me.)
Anyway, the train stops with literally ten feet to go and they get the car moved maybe a minute later. The reason I’m telling this story is that the girl never got out of the car. Seriously. Never. People are risking their lives to move her, one of the guys is trying to physically haul her out of the front seat, there is a giant train howling down at her with lights and horns and everything and she stayed in the car. Deer, meet headlights, I guess. People do really dumbass things.