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21st November 2012, 05:21 PM | #41 |
Illuminator
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The quintessential tough-on-crime-for-everyone-else red state driver...
http://www.argusleader.com/article/2...on-fatal-crash |
26th November 2012, 01:57 PM | #42 |
Gatekeeper of The Left
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http://trn.trains.com/en/Railroad%20...0accident.aspx
This is paywalled, so I will quote the relevant bit;
Quote:
If you wonder why the engineer did not go into emergency any sooner than he did; Putting a train into emergency is a great way to derail it, and usually it is a last resort. Note it took 75 seconds to stop the train even in emergency, so even if the train had been in emergency when the lights came on, it still would have struck the float. |
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26th November 2012, 02:38 PM | #43 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Speaking as someone who grew up in a town on the edge of the great plains, where (at the time) the B&O, Pensy, Erie, and (one other I can't remember) freight lines went across the road to my grandma's house, you betcha.
A coal train coming out of the foothills with 130 3-hopper cars loaded is not going to stop any time soon. No, just no. The ones with 90 2-hopper cars full of taconite, even more so. (ETA but they were going the other way, toward Pittsburgh) |
26th November 2012, 03:06 PM | #44 |
I lost an avatar bet.
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26th November 2012, 04:28 PM | #45 |
Penultimate Amazing
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26th November 2012, 07:23 PM | #46 |
Muse
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26th November 2012, 07:56 PM | #47 |
NWO Master Conspirator
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26th November 2012, 08:45 PM | #48 |
Becoming Beth
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26th November 2012, 08:56 PM | #49 |
Becoming Beth
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As you so cogently pointed out earlier ... My only disagreement is with the word "shouldn't". It doesn't matter. Placing yourself in a position where you are unable to continue across a railroad track is no different than just stopping on one for the hell of it. There's just no way around this. Unless somebody rear-ends your vehicle and pushes it onto the tracks or your brakes lock up and you skid to an uncontrolled halt on the tracks ... some factor beyond the driver's control ... there is no excuse. At all. The driver of that float was personally responsible for every injury and fatality resulting from the accident. Nobody else was, nor any other agency or circumstance. |
26th November 2012, 09:08 PM | #50 |
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27th November 2012, 06:40 AM | #51 |
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I'd give the float driver some leeway had he begun crossing the tracks before the lights warning lights & bells were on but found that, due to not being used to towing something behind him, he had misjudged the amount of room needed on the other side of the track and found the float stuck on the tracks. Yes, it would still be negligence and completely his fault, but I could at least understand it and feel a lot more sympathy for the driver. It'd been a stupid mistake due to a stupid miscalculation that is easy to make.
However, that doesn't seem to be what happened. The warning lights and bells were on before he attempted to cross the tracks. It was idiotic to even attempt to cross the tracks at that point, regardless of how much space was on the other side. The driver either wasn't paying attention to the lights and bells at all, in which case I doubt he was thinking much about how much room was on the other side of the tracks, or the driver outright chose to ignore the warning lights. Given the timeline, I have no sympathy for the driver. ETA: This is assuming that the lights are placed in such a way that the driver must have been able to see them. Thinking about it some, given the speeds that parades travel at I guess it's possible that if the warning lights are placed far enough away from the train tracks that the driver could have passed the lights but not yet started crossing the tracks before the warning lights were on. So the driver may have not been capable of seeing the lights. |
27th November 2012, 09:10 AM | #52 |
Penultimate Amazing
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I want to know- What kind of Parade stops at red (traffic) lights?
In every Parade I've ever seen, traffic is cleared and blocked from the route, and the parade ignores the traffic signs and lights, with the exception of, say, a 60mph freight train activating the crossing signal--only Canadian Moose argue with freight trains) So why was the float in front stopped at the light ahead? And can't the Midlanders get a timetable from BN/ATSF? |
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27th November 2012, 09:23 AM | #53 |
Penultimate Amazing
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27th November 2012, 09:35 AM | #54 |
Skepticifimisticalationist
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I've never seen a crossing arranged in such a way that something the size of a large truck can have completely passed the signals and still not started crossing the tracks; it seems to leave a HUGE safety risk that defeats the entire purpose of having signals at the crossing. As far as I am aware, crossings that have gates, bells, and lights tend to have these directly in front of the tracks.
But assuming this was an odd crossing; in that scenario the driver still should have been able to see the gates coming down on the other side of the tracks; that certainly should have alerted him in time. |
27th November 2012, 09:45 AM | #55 |
Penultimate Amazing
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I'm pretty sure I read in a news account that the driver was a truck driver for one of the oil-related businesses in Midland. Assuming that is correct, it mystifies me that he wouldn't have been more careful about railroad crossings, and he should certainly be used to hauling a trailer, though probably not one full of people. I'm pretty sure trucks hauling hazmat, as well as buses, are required to stop at all railroad crossings.
My guess would be that the driver was so focused on keeping up with the truck in front of him that he completely tuned out the crossing signals. A disastrous mistake, regardless of the cause. |
27th November 2012, 11:41 AM | #56 |
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The whole truck doesn't have to have passed the sign. Just the driver. If the sign is set 10 feet away from the tracks, then the driver could have gone passed the sign as it was activating, leaving about 5 feet before the track. If they are just crawling along, then it would take several seconds to move that 5 feet.
Unlikely situation, yes, but I'm trying to envision the best case scenario for the driver. |
27th November 2012, 12:14 PM | #57 |
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27th November 2012, 12:55 PM | #58 |
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Here is the site on Google Maps; https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Garfi...ed=0CAgQ_AUoAA
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27th November 2012, 01:19 PM | #59 |
lorcutus.tolere
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Speaking generally, not to this particular incident, of all the ridiculously bad driving I ever witness, this has to be the worst. It totally confounds me that anyone would ever drive across a rail line when the other side wasn't clear, yet I see people do this all the time.
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O xein', angellein Lakedaimoniois hoti têde keimetha tois keinon rhémasi peithomenoi. A fan of fantasy? Check out Project Dreamforge. |
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27th November 2012, 01:24 PM | #60 |
lorcutus.tolere
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It looks like the barrier arms and signals are less than 6ft from the actual rail line. The traffic stop line is further back from the signals; about a car length back from the track. I would presume the law prohibits crossing that line unless it is clear on the other side? In other words, any law-abiding driver will pull up to the traffic stop line, and wait until it is clear on the far side of the tracks before moving forward. From this position the signals and barrier areas are clearly visible. |
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O xein', angellein Lakedaimoniois hoti têde keimetha tois keinon rhémasi peithomenoi. A fan of fantasy? Check out Project Dreamforge. |
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27th November 2012, 01:33 PM | #61 |
Lackey
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“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago |
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27th November 2012, 01:38 PM | #62 |
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Agreed. The only way to deal with this is to wait for clearance.
I think psychology enters in here; He was not thinking of the usual things drivers think about because he was in a parade. That sort of psychological mis-framing is the cause of lots of the accidents in the NTSB reports archives. (I'm weird and I sometimes read accident reports when I am bored!) |
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27th November 2012, 01:44 PM | #63 | |||
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To be fair you have MANY fewer level crossings than we have here, and I wouldn't expect drivers to be as familiar with them. But familiarity doesn't seem to help.
Sometimes people race to their deaths;
Warning, you see the van hit but in extreme distance. Both children dead on the scene, Mom died a few days later. This was in Hammond IN. |
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27th November 2012, 05:39 PM | #64 |
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27th November 2012, 05:46 PM | #65 |
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27th November 2012, 06:42 PM | #66 |
Muse
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They probably wanted to stay with the part of the parade that was going to be stuck waiting for the train to pass, instead of having a gap. I would have thought they'd have planned ahead so that the parade wasn't crossing the tracks at the same time a train was due. Not for safety, just so they wouldn't have to stop the parade. Seems like poor planning.
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27th November 2012, 07:00 PM | #67 |
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28th November 2012, 06:01 AM | #68 | |||
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This catchy music video is apropos (wait until 2:20 onwards).
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28th November 2012, 09:11 PM | #69 |
Thinker
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Here comes the lawsuit.
Quote:
I have a lot of respect for vets but this is absurd. Suing the railway company reeks of a cash grab and from what I've read they did everything by the book. Pathetic. |
29th November 2012, 07:29 AM | #70 |
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Agreed. Everything so far has shown that things on the railroad's end functioned within the regulations of the law - all of which seem perfectly reasonable to me. There's nothing that has been shown to indicate that this accident does not lay completely on the driver of the truck.
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29th November 2012, 09:41 AM | #71 |
Skeptic not Atheist
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Quote:
Quote:
This sounds like there were some (most likely small) issues at the site involving the railroad.
Quote:
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29th November 2012, 09:50 AM | #72 |
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There is a reason lawyers are sometimes classed with the slime mold on the tree of life.
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29th November 2012, 11:25 AM | #73 |
Muse
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Click on the quoted Google Maps link, above.
Zoom in on the intersection and RR crossing. Now, turn off the 45 degree viewing mode. You will see a different image. That different image shows a crew cab dually pickup truck pulling a long trailer. The truck and trailer are stopped behind another vehicle on Garfield waiting at a red light to cross Front St. The rear end of the trailer is on the RR track. Talk about an accident waiting to happen... |
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