It’s truly amazing. In over 15 years of reading NTSB reports, the train always wins. Yet every year, a few more people just have to test that axiom and prove it valid one more time. Knuckleheads. :smack:
I second this!!
There’s an unusual set of intersections near where I live. Two roads parallel the highway on either side and a perpendicular road that intersects all three.
Invariably, on my commute home, traffic stops in the middle of one or more of these intersections and, when the lights change, cars from the other direction try to pour out into the intersection as well.
Causes a headache for EVERYONE.
A few months ago, I was stopped by a red light at one of these intersections. Grizzwife was in another car beside me. Light turned green and, because of clogged traffic in the intersection, we didn’t pull away.
The driver behind my wife became incensed. Blowing his horn, waving his hands and generally becoming apopleptic for yelling at her to “MOOOO-OOOOOVE!”
When the intersection cleared and we moved out, he continued to follow her (way too closely!), giving her the finger, etc. I kept an eye on the situation and watched her drive right by our street another mile into the parking lot of the police station.
Magically, Mr “over-the-top” disappeared.
To be fair, I’ve done this a couple of times, mostly when behind a large vehicle I can’t see around. If I don’;t realize the cars i front are backed up, I might move with the van or whatever and get suck in the middle. I try to avoid it, but being a 20-year old honda makes me a big low for all the vans and trucks and things.
This is largely because the train is capable of creaming the car and the car is incapable of denting the train. Thus, the train has a hell of a lot more insurance attached to it.
Morally, it doesn’t make sense. But legally and financially, it makes all the sense in the world.
The train, of course, couldn’t stop if it wanted to. And if people go past the warning gates, we really can’t do much about it.
There have been four people killed in the last month or so in the next parish over, crossing in front of oncoming freight trains moving at speed. I just do not get it. There’s also an intersection not too far from my house that has freight trains passing several times a day, and routinely people stop on the tracks to wait for a light. I’ve been honked at for giving ample clearance to the tracks, when all it would mean is that the person behind me would be ten feet closer to the traffic light when it changes. Just because other people think I should have a deathwish doesn’t mean that I do.
I get honked at for waiting for pedestrians to cross in front of me, in a crosswalk, with their walk light. People are kinda funny, you know? And not ha-ha funny, either.
It goes the other way more often in my experience. A driver in front me stopped at a green light to let a pedestrian cross. Luckily the pededstrian was smarter than her, and realized the other lane of traffic was unlikely to offer ther the same courtesy.
Once every week or so I go to cross a street where I have a crosswalk and a green walk light, and someone taking a turn without looking almost runs me over and then gets mad at me. I don’t know how we got away from the whole “yield to pedestrians in crosswalk” thing, but the Calgary way of doing things is sounding mighty nice.
I know what you’re talking about, Raygun. Clueless drivers are definitely part of the problem - if the pedestrian doesn’t have right of way, don’t go doing something unpredictable that’s actually going to endanger the pedestrian.
Kiros, as a pedestrian downtown, I’m constantly trying to look in all directions for people trying to mow me down. I like to think I’m a better driver because I actually get out and walk regularly, so I know how the other half lives.
No kidding. Do you people realize that many trains–even trains carrying toxic chemicals or nuclear waste–have no ability to steer whatsoever?!? Clearly, we need to shut down all train service until those things can be revamped somehow to give them some kind of ability to swerve around obstacles.
That completely upsets the entire system. My calculations for getting across the street do not include you stopping. 