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I have ridden in the cab of Amtrak trains out of Chicago and the engineers have to witness near misses almost every single day.  I don't know if they get over seeing near misses but I didn't.  Seeing a dumb**s adult on a bicycle going around the gates wearing headphones, never noticing the train bearing down at 70+mph will make you cringe and probably not ever forget what you just saw.  That one was so close I literally closed my eyes.  We couldn't have missed that joker by more than 2 feet.  With, strobes, ditch lights and a 5-chime horn blaring away long & strong these people will still wander out in front of speeding trains.  

I think that Europeans have installed barriers that pop up preventing someone from wandering onto the tracks while a train is coming.  I see that as the only sure deterrent to the pedestrian and bicycle "unintentional suicides".  I suppose it would also work for vehicles, although we're talking serious capital investment now.  What's the ultimate answer?

Phil McCaig posted:

. I suppose it would also work for vehicles, although we're talking serious capital investment now.  What's the ultimate answer?

Most likely, grade separation or street closures, though someone(s) will still walk on ROW or deliberately step into train path.  No curing dumbness.

RoyBoy posted:

So the son killed his himself and his dad. What a dipsh*t.

One of our railfan group casually knew the father who had no interest in trains.  So now police are asking around to see if there were family or psychological troubles.   May never know as our newspaper doesn't publish follow ups unless persons were prominent or death was "spectacular".

Dominic Mazoch posted:

Can a transit authority (LRT), commuter, Amtrak, or freight rail sue the (F Word) out of a driver, cyclist or pedestrian who causes such a wreck?  Thete HAS to be some type od damage, somewhere.

Sorry, but thete is only pocketbook morality today.

Pretty sure the deceased learned the ultimate lesson. Not sure what Jury is going to be on board with a billion dollar corporation suing an average Joe for whatever if any money they had to their name.

I know a retired engineer (he worked for NS and CSX at different times) who, in the course of his career, was the engineer in 2 or 3 fatal train-car-pedestrian incidents. I ventured once to ask him carefully if those events were still bothersome to him.

He said that no, they weren't. He didn't like it, but he quite properly felt no responsibility for what happened. And he was absolutely correct. He was doing his job within the limits of proper behavior. Responsibility ends somewhere, and his ended beyond the RR ROW. (Many people do seem to forget the death and injury inflicted on innocent train crews - and lots of others - by the Texting Generation.)

Unfortunately, I imagine that the engine crew on the above locomotive will be victimized for the rest of their lives by a lot of talk of "closure" by a lot of people - of course, how can anyone have "closure" if it keeps getting talked about? 

aussteve posted:

Im not sure that this is preventable.

Drunk driving kills thousands each year and not much has stopped that.

Preventable?; no. 

D.D. happens less of a % of drivers as it used to here, and less severly than it used to imo.  The accepted % in your blood just dropped here again and a "breath a nickle o' liquor, no go". 

   You can sue for anything. Winning is another story.

  There is such a thing as bad publicity.

 Erie must have seen statement in the action; an advantageous legal precedence; had a very bored law firm on retainer; spotted one heck of insurance liability policy with the neglent driver; had an aggressive amblance chaser/estate in the mix to "punish"; etc..

Adriatic posted:

  What other sources did you draw high speed &/or 'around the gates' from, etc?

Not much detail there on what actually happened.

   For all we can tell from that story so far, a coffee cup fell and rolled under the brake. 

And how did "they" determine that if both were DRT? ("Dead Right There" - Unofficial police nomenclature at his department that I learned from a police friend of mine.)

In that compacted wreckage, anything could be under the brake pedal including body parts.

Andre

After experiencing a rather disturbing number of vehicular crossing incidents in a short period of time, I began to tense up at every crossing expecting the last second "WHAM!" and attendant issues that immediately (and sometimes later) follows.

It was really beginning to bother me and at high risk crossings I could literally feel the tensing of my muscles and the dread inwardly as I approached it.

I think it was an older retired engineer that said something to the effect that: "Stupid people are going to do stupid things, and those things will get them hurt and even killed. There's not a thing you can do about it."

He was right. The more I thought on that, the more I realized that there wasn't a single thing I could do to change a person's mind from committing an injurious (or worse) act of stupidity.

Stupid people do stupid things, and often with lasting or terminal results.

It simply can't be fixed, regardless of what extent we try.

Andre

Last edited by laming

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