NC Train v. Truck Crash/Derailment – Who’s to Blame?
http://news.yahoo.com/amtrak-train-truck-collide-north-carolina-several-hurt-180638852.html
Quick Summary: Gigantic truck carrying modular building, escorted by State Troopers, got stuck at a rail crossing. Train smashed into it. Many injured.
How in the heck does this happen in this day and age? Normally, the way this works is there’s some knucklehead in a pick-up who just can’t quite figure out that it’s the pedal on the right that needs stomping.
But in this situation, there seemed to have been several ways to avoid this. Let’s discuss:
First, if you’ve got a Trooper escort, then you realize already that this is a special situation. That being the case, why didn’t they route this over a clearer highway route? Why were they at this intersection, particularly given the difficulty of the turn described in the article and the mega-trailer involved?
Second, when the truck appears to be stuck, shouldn’t the Trooper be able to communicate to the rail folks that there’s a dangerous situation and any trains need to be diverted or stopped? We need to know the time-line a little better, but it seems plausible that there was time to warn the train with sufficient notice to stop to avoid the collision.
Third, sometimes these crossings are just poorly designed, and the State is to blame. But from these facts it seems like it’s more likely the crossing and turn in relation to the size of the vehicle involved, so I’m not sure that the crossing design is to blame.
Fourth, what about Amtrak? Couldn’t they have a better system for spotting these sorts of troubles? If we can have cell phones connected to our home alarms, can’t they monitor crossings better?
Finally, the driver…shouldn’t he have been able to see that his truck wasn’t going to be able to do this in the first place?
There’s plenty of blame to spread around here and I hope the people on this train that were injured get a fair award for their injuries.
If you know of any of them, tell them to call me!
919-929-2992