Continue to Site

Eng-Tips is the largest engineering community on the Internet

Intelligent Work Forums for Engineering Professionals

Register Log in
  • Congratulations KootK on being selected by the Eng-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

We've had murder cars, now we've got murder-trains in Florida of course 13

Status
Not open for further replies.
The moving train was also blowing its horn well within time for them to hear it and pause.

Was it really a false warning? The gates typically sound for the duration that a train is within the vicinity. This even applies for switching.

I have witnessed this type of accident. I was riding with my dad in his truck on a 4 lane with center divide. We were in the left lane, another car was at our quarter in the right lane. A elder man sprinted from the center divide and cleared our lane but did not see the kid driving on our rear quarter and got hit at about 35mph. My dad and I both saw it coming from our perspective.
 
Hearing it isn't seeing it, especially if the horn sounds when out of sight. It is why most emergency vehicles slow down at intersections in spite of sirens and using flashing lights.

The warning is that a train is moving towards or on the crossing. If the train is not moving toward or isn't in the crossing, particularly if it is obviously stopped for loading there is nothing to warn against, so the warning is false.

Trains are not radioactive nor do they emit lethal amounts of thermal or electromagnetic radiation. The only danger, aside from falling off of one, is when they are moving or blocking the road. That is when the gates and lights and bells should go.

In related news, the length of trains has increased, so towns that had two crossing would have had only one blocked if a train stopped. Now the trains are far longer creating the potential for hours every day during which a town may be cut in half, leaving children unable to reach school or go home after and no way for emergency vehicles to cross. This leads to children climbing onto and under railcars and, worse, couplers. So far the railroads have flipped the middle finger to the people and the only equal response, blocking the tracks, is currently illegal, while blocking the road is not.

 
At some point people need to be responsible for their own actions. Alcohol is available to purchase at any grocery store and WAY more people die from alcohol than railroad accidents.

If you get hit by a train that's on tracks while the crossing alarm is sounding while it's sounding its horn... that one is on you. There is no reason to set the rest of society back.

It's funny watching everyone rip on the guy that says airbags cause deaths and then watch the same people say trains cause deaths.
 
Expect a train on any track from either direction at any time. Not that difficult.

I’ll see your silver lining and raise you two black clouds. - Protection Operations
 
davidbeach said:
Expect a train on any track from either direction at any time. Not that difficult.
Click to expand...

I was just going to post exactly that statement, but davidbeach beat me to it.
 
It's not difficult for those very familiar with tracks. I am reminded that the airport in London puts up signs for pedestrians to look Right when crossing the road because of the number of people who are not familiar with traffic and, by habit, looke Left to see if the one-way road is clear.

Add in the casual nature of the majority of the crowd not making any obvious action, and someone is going to be left out.

 
The video was edited to show a crowd crossing when there was no train approaching and then cut to a scene where one person attempted to cross with no crowd present immediately before a couple ran in front of the train. The crowd has nothing to do with the accident.

I assume the lawyer was leading the client. Perhaps we should be talking about how institutional education deprives individuals or experience based learning?

I will also admit that the school of hard knocks produces some frustratingly dense individuals.
 
The crowd crossed before the same stationary train with the same signals warning them not to cross. The crowd action shows that many felt it was safe to cross under those conditions and would likely have been observed doing so by the lawyer and Mary. Perhaps the crowd members knew there would be a horn sounded by a second train, knowledge that Mary and the lawyer may not have and would not be observable.

The warnings were clearly ignored and insufficient for so many to cross in full view of the train crew. As tempting as it is, the death penalty should be avoided for observable errors and trespasses. If I put up a sign "No Trespassing" and every day watched 100 people walk through my property from my front porch, I cannot then claim total innocence if one of them finds a set bear trap. After all, while everyone knows the damage a bear trap can do, recognizing the danger of it in tall grass is another matter.

Unlike me, rail barons bought enough politicians long enough ago to create laws that entirely insulate them from almost the entirety of liability, so they are excused from most repercussions by the bribes they made .

Perhaps how capitalism pushes private risks into public places for private profits should be included in education.
 
The video was cut. We don't know how much time elapsed between the crowd crossing and the lawyer + woman.

Perhaps I should argue that the warnings against Marxism are obvious and clear yet ignored by many?

Maybe it's well known that railroads have deep pockets which makes them the target of lawyers. Is that capitalism?
 
There wasn't that big a time gap; you can see the people that crossed the track dispersing on the other side when the lawyer and the victim start crossing the tracks.

Not saying there could have been better controls or warnings, but this was 1992, and people supposedly had more common sense back then. Tragic as it was, we've argued against someone else about how it's not possible to get 100% safety, and that should be true here as well. I mean, at the end of the day, if I hadn't been lucky when I was 12 and ran into a car instead of the other way around, I wouldn't be here either, so looking left and right when crossing any thoroughfare is just stuff you have to do.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
IRStuff said:
There wasn't that big a time gap; you can see the people that crossed the track dispersing on the other side when the lawyer and the victim start crossing the tracks.
Click to expand...

I strongly disagree with this statement. We have no idea what the time gap was from the video. What I do know is that I saw a portion of video with a lot of people crossing the tracks separated by a pause and then a video with only one person attempting across the tracks. After which the fateful couple also attempted to cross the tracks.
 
You can disagree all you want, but the video is pretty easy to follow, given that the other woman is wearing and carrying extremely distinctive clothing and bag. A grand total of maybe 8 seconds, tops

train_1_ox5wd3.png
She's at the back of the pack, walking slowly
train_2_v8z0a1.png
She was going to cross, but walks back onto the curb to wait out the oncoming train; the camera operator zooms out so that the oncoming train can be filmed
train_3_t8zdbs.png
She stands there at the curb and the lawyer and the victim walk up
train_4_s9t1ct.png
The pair pass the standing woman and the oncoming train is visible to any of the 3, assuming they looked

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
Common sense is used to describe prior experience, not some connection to a greater ethereal and all pervasive intelligence allowing an individual access to some previously encountered knowledge that is earned by mystic karma.

Seems like the one who turned had experience and more than enough time to cross and not enough common sense to tell the other two a train was coming. Do you suppose that woman slept well knowing that a tap on the arm or a word would have prevented Mary from being turned into pulp and splattered across the way? Common sense would be to do what would avoid carrying that memory for the rest of her life.

Who would wash the blood off and chuckle that they knew the splatter was going to be good and just let it happen, taking odds on if it would be one or both? Common sense predicted it was going to happen.
 
The woman with the bag never stopped looking to her left,.towards the trains. The lawyer and victim passed her on the right.
 
As they say, "Evolution fails when stupidity is no longer fatal."

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik
 
Evolution can't "fail", because there are no goals to achieve. It just IS.


Meanwhile let's not forget the true killer:

"Mary T. Wojtyla was killed by the procedure of parking so close."*

Death by procedure. An interesting concept.

spsalso


*from post by 3DDave, approximately 34 posts previous
 
Wait and see how people who don't follow procedure die in aviation.
 
I wonder how far away she'd have to have parked...

Sorry, out of context...


The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand
 
I'm missing the "...don't follow procedure..." in my post.

You're claiming procedure WAS followed in the train/pedestrian event. And it killed someone.

There's a difference between following procedure and not following procedure (it's kind of the opposite, in a way).



spsalso
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

JohnRBaker
  • Locked
  • News
28 cars crash during a single accident at a NASCAR event...
Replies
10
Views
314
drawoh
drawoh
Reverse_Bias
  • Locked
  • Question
Acapulco now modern ruins 54
4 5 6
Replies
118
Views
758
dik
dik
IRstuff
  • Locked
  • Question
Self-Driving Cars and Taxis Are Here! 5
2
Replies
31
Views
332
Luceid
Luceid
M
  • Question
Winter tires that don't work in snow 1
2
Replies
28
Views
10K
waross
waross
Retrograde
  • Locked
  • Question
Bridge Collapse in Dresden 1
2
Replies
33
Views
1K
Ingenuity
Ingenuity

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor

Back
Top Bottom