Hey, there! Log in / Register
Police say man drives around down train gate, is promptly killed by the train the gate was down for
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
preliminary investigation suggests
When someone's friend or family member is killed, I'm not comfortable with assigning fault to the deceased, unless and until there's an official determination.
Sounds quite official to me
Guy drove around a fully functional crossing gate and got whacked. I don't see how it could be anyone else's fault.
NO
They even said "preliminary". And I think this "got whacked" remark is really inappropriate on a popular public site that friends and family will see.
Trend?
It's happening way too much now.
Darwin at work
n/t
No
No, Darwin's going to be late for work if he was on that train.
Probably not
Most 63-year-olds have already had children, or are not having any, and are in either case ineligible for a Darwin Award.
this comment
really cannot get enough upvotes.
63-year-old men
Can still father children.
Look it up
Look up the meaning of the words probably and most.
Sounds like it might be a suicide
n/t
Idle speculation regarding suicide is extremely bad form
It is completely inappropriate and totally unnecessary. This is a very serious matter.
The poster and up-voters should seriously reconsider this behavior.
RIP to the deceased and condolences to his loved ones.
Agreed
While I have no problem with how Adam wrote this up, we have no idea about the driver's motivation for his action. I have my thoughts (impatience) but there's nothing to prove my thoughts true.
Agreed on Adam's coverage, and his mea culpa
Appreciated Adam's acknowledgement that the headline may have been a bit flip.
Wanted to add to my comment RE suicide speculation and note that my thoughts are with the train operator as well.
Nobody should have to endure that.
I did not mean my comment to be flip
and apologize if it offended people. I was, in fact, motivated by the flip "Darwin Award" comment and was trying to point out that it didn't sound like routine stupidity but potentially a purposeful act.
Suicide is an important topic and should not be considered shameful or stigmatized. It's not a character flaw, and not something that should need to be hidden.
Thanks for the apology, mg
I didn't take your comment as flip nor was I offended. However I did feel the need to weigh in on matter as I've seen it here before. I'm not too concerned about the shameful aspects but there could be many other repercussions, including legal and financial, if the act of suicide is in fact confirmed.
Truly a matter left for the authorities and the deceased loved ones.
Happy New year to you, mg.
Thanks for the explanation, anon again
I didn't not realize there were legal and financial repercussions. Too used to dealing with mental health aspects.
I appreciate the explanations and wish you a Happy New Year, too -
MG
When someone dies
maybe the UH post should have a standard reminder to commenters, to remember that the person's friends and family will be searching the Web and reading it.
Speculation about fault or suicide, and jokes, seem inappropriate in that context.
To Be Clear
To Be Clear... the posting of this accident is a re-hash of news that has already been in the media elsewhere. As with many stories that are aggregated from such news sites, the content is often about the same as what these sites have been reporting, either verbatim or summarized for brevity sake.
That said, eyewitnesses to the accident have been interviewed and have spoken on camera to say the driver specifically went around the gates and attempted to make the crossing ahead of the train.
They also stated that this is a constant issue at this particular grade crossing.
This driver was the unlucky one.
The MBTA and Keolis were not at fault here. The gates were working and down and flashing, and trains cannot stop like an automobile can. It can take thousands of feet to bring a train to a stop.
The gate design is specified by federal regulation so anything else cannot be installed without getting specific variances, approvals, and tests. So before we start speculating on a better gate, you need to change federal regulations first and that won't happen easily. Things of this nature are governed by the Surface Transportation Board and Federal Railroad Administration within USDOT. Neither the state (MBTA) or any city/town can require otherwise or make changes.
The solutions that is known to prevent accidents of this nature are the elimination fo at-grade crossings, and that would require the construction of a tunnel, trench (as was the case in Weymouth) or a bridge. The costs of these are prohibitive in most all instances unless there is federal monies that pay for it.
That said, eliminating the grade crossings is only one solution. What is really needed is getting people to stop breaking the laws that are set up to protect them and sustain life, by observing the crossing gates and what they mean.
And that goes for drivers in vehicles as well as pedestrians on foot.
It might be interesting to also determine how many people on foot are doing the same at this crossing as well as similar elsewhere.
As a kid I used to walk the tracks as a shortcut between two points on the way home. Then there was that day I came across the body of a full-sized German Shepherd cleanly cut in two as if it was a surgical procedure. The two halves of the body were short distances apart. it was a pretty graphic and sobering thing to see. That was pretty much the last day I took that short cut.
It's not worth the risk.
And, oh... take out the ear buds too.
One minor correction
Although I certainly aggregate stuff from other media outlets, this came from the same source many of the other outlets got it from as well - a Transit Police blog post.
This website's frequent wiseass postings about people's deaths
make me think that the moderator is a complete jerk. But then again, maybe he's just pandering to his target demographic who thinks that an incident like this merits an unfunny, unoriginal, immature "Darwin Awards" discussion.
Of what possible value is the phrase "is promptly killed by the train the gate was down for"?
A person with any decency would save the cute, smug headlines for the fluff news about MBTA delays and turkeys, and not apply them when somebody has died.
Cue the groupies..."Oh Adam is amazing and it's his website and he can write whatever he wants and if you don't like it then don't read it"
Yes, I shouldn't be so flip
I'm not flip when I write about somebody getting murdered and I shouldn't be when writing about somebody dying in a car crash. I'll try to do better. And commenters should perhaps count to ten or wonder how they'd feel if it were somebody they knew involved in the crash.
But while anybody who wasn't there doesn't really know what happened, and while accounts of horrible wrecks can change and have changed, the statement from the police doesn't paint the best picture of why this particular incident happened. To ignore that would risk placing some of the blame on the train engineer, who is no doubt already dealing with the trauma of the situation.
What a perfect display of sanctimoniousness
If your motive (via your comment) was to guide other readers and commenters to adapt a higher level of sensitivity and decorum, your ostensive definition of what you believe is the "correct kind" of dialog on a social media website has failed substantially.
Your choice of verbiage to chastise the moderator as a complete jerk and the rest of us as being part of some sort of targeted demographic who are unfunny, unoriginal and immature groupies says less about us and more about you.
Being self-righteousness, sententiousness, and smug while wrapped in a holier-than-thou attitude (expressed while hiding behind an anonymous user ID) suggests more that you simply want to convince us that your beliefs, actions, or affiliations are of greater virtue than those of the average person.
My experience when encountering self-righteous individuals is that they are often more intolerant and less sensitive than those they accuse of aberrant behaviors and opinions. Sounds like you may need a bit more fibre in your diet.
Why we talk about fault and circumstances
There is this thing called "prevention". In much of the civilized world, we have a much safer environment because we have learned how to prevent accidents.
And fires. You do realize that people once shared your attitude toward fires, so they just kept happening. Act of God - can't talk about it HOW DARE YOU TALK ABOUT IT. Read some of the interviews with the NFPA founders - they encountered many such as yourself in their outreach.
You are far less likely to die in a car accident or a fire than you would have been decades ago because people talked about causes and fault and the like. Note that these changes rarely came about as the result of official investigation alone - they required popular support and demand. See also "Unsafe At Any Speed".
Also, bear in mind that this driver's actions, regardless of intent or reason, put an entire train full of people at risk.
make me think that the
I hear there are actually other websites.
Name one!
Name one!
It shouldn't be necessary but
Maybe it's time to add a second crossing gate on the opposite travel lanes. That would seal off the tracks completely except for those cases where there is space to go completely outside the gate.
People drive right through
People drive right through the gates, too, usually accidentallly. They snap right off. Gate arms only send a message and don't actually stop a car from entering the tracks.
West Medford
They put up bollards in the middle of the road. Still didn't stop the Worst Driver in the City from running the gate for no apparent reason (this guy had already re registered his car in NH because of the cost of his earlier accidents).
Transit Police
They have seen a lot of tragedies this past year between accidents on the commuter rail , the subways and buses. This will probably be a morbid question but how many deaths occurred this past year on the whole system?
An ounce of wit equals a longer life?
If the driver purposely drove on the other side and died because he made a foolish choice then hopefully his death will remind someone else that safety is not something to ignore or play games with. I offer my condolences to his loved ones.
Safety precautions exist to prevent harm and death. If a bit of wit at the expense of a man who chose to believe that he knew there would be no train is what it takes to prevent another death - or more - then so be it.
When in the normal course of a week I see several instances of people purposely driving dangerously, taking unnecessary risks or acting as though they want are competing for a Darwin Award I wonder why there are not more deaths?
Hopefully someone loved this man and will take to heart the importance of being safe for the sake of the people who love that person.