In just the last month in Southern California there have been no less than five collisions between cars and commuter trains at grade crossings, resulting in three fatalities of idiot drivers and numerous injuries to rail passengers. Maybe the state should start giving an IQ test before it passes out driver’s licenses.
Is there ANYBODY who doesn’t know that it’s dangerous, deadly, STUPID to try to beat a train to a crossing? Yet five times in one month this has happened. Each time there is local news coverage warning drivers that the trains are doing nearly 80 mph, and that THEY CAN’T STOP!
I am sorry for the families of the dead stupid people, but frankly, their demise is ultimately beneficial to the gene pool. I can only hope the individuals who threw away their lives and risked many other people’s lives haven’t already reproduced.
Just a rant. If you think I’m hateful, you’re a kinder soul than I am.
I agree. But I don’t understand why school buses (Here in SE Michigan at least) stop on the freaking tracks. It seems to me that you want to cross as quickly as reasonably possible, and not invite possible mechanical failure to leave you stranded on the tracks.
The government’s secret way of reducing class sizes?
I don’t see how these collisions happen at anything above an uncontrolled, unlit crossing… but what Brutus mentioned I’d like to know more about.
I remember on one or two field trips, the bus driver would stop, open the door, look, close the door and go on; this would be great except that if a train had been coming it woulda taken the front off the bus right up to the front seats. (Where I happened to be, hence the consternation). I guess it might be a rule somewhere that people providing transportation to school children have to do this, but in such a dumb way?
That’s what I see. I see a total lack of common sense with such activity; Why the holy fuck would they stop? Look both ways *before you get on the tracks, then haul ass. When stopped, they risk engine stalls, getting stuck (on ice, for instance), etc. Just go!
Here in Georgia a few months ago I approached a railway crossing where the red lights were on and the bell going and half-barriers. The two cars in front of me both drove across, zig-zagging the barriers. I stopped. The car behind me then overtook me and crossed. Incredible.
Thank you for that badly needed laugh, Michael. I just got Shorts Volume 2 for my birthday and I saw both of the Union Pacific shorts.
I’ve lived near and crossed train tracks all my life. You don’t mess with trains. You wait until it’s passed and count the cars. It used to be more fun when they still had cabooses.
SpazCat, who typed this to the sounds of The Cure and a train going by.
When I was a young pup we had a bus driver that was fanatical about stopping and listening for the train. He would pop open the door and bellow “SHUT UP!!” and listen in complete silence for 5 seconds.
God help the kid that made noise for that 5 seconds.
And let’s not forget the engineers (drivers) of the trains who are involved in these accidents. From what I heard (working at Canada’s second-largest railway for two years), they are devastated by killing someone with their train.
Regarding barriers, Nanoda, Yesterday’s fatal crash happened at a crossing with a barrier, and at least one witness said it was down and flashing. They saw the idiot speed up to beat the train. The whole point of my rant was that some individuals, like this jerk, are so stupid that nature has to weed them out. Usually they kill only themselves, but in the case of some bus drivers, sadly thay take innocents with them.
I’m not usually unsympathetic to people’s deaths. That news story last night just set me off.
My mom was a school bus driver for a while and, yes, drivers should stop before the tracks.
She nearly shat herself when I told her of what happened on a field trip in high school. I was sitting near the front, enjoying the trip. We came to some train tracks. Driver slows then the gates started to come down… The gate was hitting my window :eek: The driver was too far forward and with cars behind could not back up. I could see the train coming and quickly informed the driver. We were very lucky in that the train was going slow enough he spotted us and was able to stop. WHEW!
Stupid drivers drive my mad. The number of times I’ve been in close-calls because of some twit not paying attention… People seem so concerned with saving a few precious seconds they don’t consider the consequences of their shortcuts.
Ah, trains, modern society’s answer to the lions of the savannah . . .
Why is it that some people become so impatient as soon as they get into the car? (Well, I dunno, maybe the type of people who take stupid risks like this are impatient all the time.) My policy is that I make every effort to get out the door on time, but once I get into the car, I do not hurry. I’m always amused by people who whip around and pass me on a double line, and then end up right in front of me at the next stop light. Good for you! You gained a car length! And you only endangered yourself and any potential oncoming traffic to do so!
And it does suck totally for the train conductors. It must be really awful to know you’re going to hit something, and not be able to stop or turn.
I can imagine. I’ve read a study on the psychological impact on metro drivers of having a suicide happen to choose their train. Imagine that, multiplied by the number of people that can be in a car, multiplied by an accident (even a stupid one) rather than a suicide.
I can imagine how it can happen, because it almost happened to me.
I was a passenger in a car. We were approaching a light in heavy traffic, and we stopped, right on a set of tracks. I immediately said, “This makes me kind of nervous. Can we get off these tracks?”
She laughed, and said “Oh you’re such a worrier”. Literally, as she was completing her sentence, the bell started ringing and the lights started flashing.
Then we screamed at each other for several seconds about whether to go forward or backward. Frankly, I don’t even remember which way she moved, but she did get it moved. I was watching the train, coming on my side and getting ready to get out if I had to.
I thought later about my readiness to get out. She was (still is) a good friend, but I was about 3 seconds from abandoning her to certain death. It had never even crossed my mind to try and pull her out with me.
In the town I grew up in, train tracks run through the center of town, and commuter trains run frequently during rush hour. The station is only a block past the main street through town, and when the train is within so many feet of the road, the gates must be down, even if the train is stopped and loading. The train crossing is between most of the town and the high school, highway entrances, etc. So no matter where you’re going in the morning, you will sit and wait for this train. Accept it, or move. My mother has timing down to a science to get my sister to school without getting stuck one or both ways. Needless to say, this inspires a selection of look-I-can-beat-the-train morons (Yes! You’ll get to the girdlocked Turnpike five minutes sooner!), and legions of people zig-zaging around the closed gates after the train’s parked in the station. The thing is, a southbound train is sometimes coming down the other track. I once saw someone miss getting hit by a few feet. Didn’t you hear the freakin’ horn?
(No, you didn’t, of course. You’re 17, headed to the high school and your music is so loud it’s rattling my teeth. Then again, the woman who just did it in front of you was middle aged and driving a minivan, so what do I know.)
NTSB reports on train vs. motor vehicle accidents almost always identify MV operator fault. Almost is said owing to an incident involving signalling that did not appropriately warn a vehicle. 26 September 1999 (train vs. motor vehicle)
The incidents on 28 March 2000 (train vs. school bus), 28 January 2000 (train vs. tractor-combination), 15 March 1999 (train vs. tractor-semitrailer), 17 November 2000 (train vs. tractor-combination) underscore a theme which proves deadly.
Not to pick holes in your post, danceswithcats (your post was right on the money), but how hard is it to see a train coming down the tracks? There is only one of two directions they might be coming from, and they have at most a 5% grade; the only way to hide an oncoming train is around a curve, and even those have to be fairly gentle to accommodate trains. Sure, signals not ringing is bad, but people have to take responsibility for their own safety, too. I know I was taught to look both ways at train crossings (and intersections, too, while we’re at it - you failed your driving test if you didn’t).
