I did some checking, not much else to do during a pandemic. According to the US Department of Transportation, there are about 5,800 train-car crashes each year in the United States, most of which occur at railroad crossings. These accidents will cause 600 deaths and injure about 2,300.
I dug a bit deeper. A 150-car freight train traveling 50 miles per hour will take over a mile to stop!
And I went further. More than 7,200 pedestrians have been killed by trains in the United States since 1997. An additional 6,400 have been injured. Each year on average about 500 are killed. Between 2001 and 2011, the number of deaths involving trains and motor vehicles dropped 42% to 248.
I know. I know. Who cares? Why are telling us about statistics that mean very little, especially when there are so many fewer boring topics to write about. An all pro-NFL quarterback announced his resignation two weeks before the season and was booed by the fans. Harvey Weinstein still claiming his innocence. Will there be baseball or football this year? Prince George was insulted by the media because he likes ballet and of course, there is always the fill in the blank of, ” I cannot believe Trump just ___.”
But while all of that is true, I heard again on the news last night that Brightline Trains, soon to be Virgin Trains, struck a car in South Florida.
Officials in Florida are considering legislation aimed at curbing the high number of deaths on the tracks of a new passenger rail line. Brightline is a privately owned rail service operating trains between Miami and West Palm Beach. In its first two years, more than 40 people have been killed by Brightline trains on tracks and at rail crossings, earning it a designation as the nation’s deadliest railroad.
Brightline’s trains operate at speeds of up to 79 miles per hour over a 70-mile stretch of track in South Florida. It’s not high-speed rail but is still much faster than the trains that people have been used to seeing on these tracks. The rail line has been here more than a century, part of the Florida East Coast Railway. In recent decades, until Brightline, the line was used only by slower freight trains.
Since Brightline launched, on average more than one person a month has been killed on the tracks, in a car, on a bike, or on foot. An analysis by The Associated Press found that this was the worst death rate per mile of any of the nation’s railroads.
The Brightline Train is large and loud and yellow and white. As the train approaches, gates come down, the lights flash and the bells ring: How does the crossing signal know that the train is coming? … You could use light beams or ultrasound. to detect the train. You could use induction loops like they do with cars at traffic lights.
That’s it in a nutshell. Gates come down and the lights flash and the bells ring. In other words, get out of the way.
It amazes me as I get older the sights I witness when I am out walking. Cars speeding up at yellow lights. Drivers not allowing the car next to him to merge ahead of him. And this is the big one. Drivers seeing the red lights flashing, hearing the bells, and instead of slowing up and waiting for the train to pass, putting the pedal to the medal and trying to outrun it.
I get the yellow light. I get the “screw you” mentality of not being a courteous driver. “Hey, I’m ahead of you pal. There is no way, you deserve to now be ahead of me. You’ve done nothing to help my commute and if we are going to the same place, you might get a better parking spot than me.”
Okay. Been there. Done that. But, help me understand the logic of not allowing the train to go. Late for an appointment. Don’t feel like sitting around and listening to the 100 stations on my Sirius XM car radio? I’ve been doing it for years and look at me today. If the gates not all the way down, I can beat it.
I saw on the news last night The National Transportation Safety Board is looking into why there are have been so many Brightline train accidents over the course of this year. I bet the guy who pulls that case is thanking his manager.
Brightline has responded with a public education campaign, warning people to stay off the tracks. At a recent news conference, Ben Porritt of Brightline said, “Too many people take unnecessary chances by driving around the gates, running across the tracks.”
“Well duh Ben.”
At the news conference next to the company’s tracks in Oakland Park, Porritt focused on a group that he said makes up a majority of the fatalities.
“Seventy-five percent of the incidents that we’ve seen are the results of suicide or drugs,” Porritt said. “It’s an industrywide concern. It just doesn’t affect Brightline. It affects every railroad across the country.”
Suicides on train tracks are a national problem, but nowhere near the 75% figure cited by Brightline. A U.S. Department of Transportation study shows that suicides account for about 30% of all rail fatalities. Accident reports on the Federal Railroad Administration’s website attribute only a handful of Brightline fatalities to suicide. The company says it arrived at its higher number after conducting investigations that included analyzing videos of the accidents filmed from its train cabs.
But rail safety activists aren’t convinced.
“We say its baloney that high a percentage of suicide,” says Susan Mehiel, with Alliance for Safe Trains, a group that has advocated for closer government regulation of the privately owned rail line. “We believe that trains and communities everywhere have problems with drugs and alcohol addiction and suicide. But not like this.”
Mehiel believes the reason the rail line leads the nation in fatalities is because its trains run so fast through densely populated communities.
“There are not enough safety features, including pedestrian gates, pedestrian channeling, pedestrian bridges and fencing,” she says. “Fencing is a really big one.”
Fencing? Fencing? Red lights flashing are a pretty good indicator.
What kind of world is this? If the gate goes down and the red light is flashing and the bell is ringing it’s a pretty good indicator it’s time to stop.
My parents used to get upset when their kids barged into their room when the door was closed.
“It wasn’t locked,” I said.
I somehow believe that if there was a railroad crossing with sirens and red lights flashing in front of the door, we would know not to enter.
And that brings us back to the guy investigating.
“So, how long do I have on this one Joe?”, the agent asks his manager.
“Take your time Nick. Get to know the Brightline people. Ride on their trains. Take a month. Longer if you want.”
“Okay. And then I will give you my report that says there is nothing wrong with the trains and the engineers know how to do their jobs. When motorists try to cross the tracks before the gate is fully down and a really fast train is coming, I hate to tell you, but the motorist will not make it.”
“Oh, and Nick.”
“Yeah Joe.”
“Don’t forget to add in the report about the pedestrians who think that just because the gates are all the way down and flashing and bells ringing that they figure they can get beat the really fast train as well.”
“I won’t. But I probably can write the report this afternoon and we can avoid the needless investigation without having to worry about social distancing, don’t ya think?”
“Cant. Common sense is out. Can’t use the commonsense defense when the family is in court suing the major shareholder for negligence. But if we have a big old report detailing what we already know, the guy who decided to jump the gates will have died in vain.”
“What a world we live in, eh Joe? People do dumb things, blame an innocent company, and wait for the lawyer to come in and make them millions.”
I wonder what Benjamin Franklin would say if he was made aware that he was involved in creating a world with no common sense.
“Yep. That’s how it works Nickie.”
Probably go looking for Thomas Paine.