Phil McCaig posted:It looks to me like the driver got hit by the train on purpose. One way to be rid of the MIL.
Seriously, the only thing that might have prevented this one is to station someone with an anti-aircraft gun to blow their car to smithereens if they venture beyond the gates as this one did. I am being facetious but good God, what can they be thinking? I hope it was actually a medical situation like a seizure that made them drive right in front of that train. Don't know what else could have caused this. You tell me because I can't imagine how these things happen. Unfortunately this isn't an isolated incident, it's just the placement of video cameras and recorders can document the occurrence and there will no doubt be another tomorrow or the next day.
Sad part is a lot of the time it is the person feeling like their time is too important to sit and wait, the person doesn't immediately sees the train, somehow thinks like either it is a false signal or think like 'typical of these #**! railroads, they don't care who they inconvenience, delaying traffic by closing the gates way too early so we have to wait too long' (and yes, I heard of these being real excuses given). Obviously could be suicide by train, but that doesn't seem to be very common IME, in most cases it was just someone being impatient.
The standard cry is they should have crossing gates that totally stop vehicles from going across when a train is coming...which sound great, but what happens when a vehicle gets caught between the gates because for example, they go down because of a malfunction, and they can't get away and there car gets hit? What happens is someone bareley gets by the first gate but gets caught by the second? Not saying these are likely, but if that happened, then people would cry that the poor person was 'trapped' by the gates and it is the railroads fault. The only way to realistically address this is to get rid of grade crossings entirely, but then who would pay for doing that? If the train came first and then the road was built, do you make the town/state/feds pay for it? Or if the road was there and the train was allowed through it, should the railroad? Personally, while there have been railroad crossings of very busy rail lines that crossed very busy roads that should be eliminated for the benefit of all, most of these grade crossings and the accidents that happen there is the fault of the driver of the car, they simply can't stand the thought that their precious time should be wasted like that, or worse, think it is some kind of game, and then they, their families and the idiot set among the public blame the railroad.
