Chris516

My father n' went from DC, south to Kitty Hawk(NC). He had a big ferring on it, that was equipped with an AM/FM radio. I think there a speaker system put into the helmets(corded of course). So we could talk over the noise of the wind.

Chris516

ditto

kickstart

Like with intersections on roads that have no stoplight, there are many thousands of rail crossings that have no gate. Its simply not practical to try to make every intersection idiot proof.

NoviceJohn

My reasons to ride are to relax and exercise. Yours are probably different. My music motivates me to ride and pedal harder and further. Like my previous post stated, I am aware of my surroundings (with earbuds on low volume) on MUPs. When I'm on the road or ride in a group, I take them off. This cyclist who died does not represent the responsible riders who are more alert and safe with earbuds.

keyven

I concur.

The train (MRT) stations here in Singapore used to be mostly without barriers between platform and track, but due to a tiny number of fatalities - mostly because some people tend to stray unnecessarily too close to the edge and somehow lost their balance or had a fainting spell - there's now a growing number of automated 'walls'.

It's arguable that almost every one of these tragedies could have been avoided if people just stayed firmly behind the yellow warning line - hardly a task that would qualify you for Mensa if you succeed.

Instead, every time there is an injury, people demand new safeguards that may increase safety by 0.01% but costs tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to build AND maintain. And we wonder why public transport prices keep going up.

CB HI

Are you OK with spending money on a bad design like this MUP then? There would be no need to spend more money for fixes, if the design of the MUP was proper in the first place.

The idiots in this case are the designers of the MUP.

CB HI

Funny how so many demand that money be spent building bike paths and painting bike lanes, but then complain about other wanting the same facilities be made safe.

Sounds like it would better to save the money to teach people to ride the roads we already have available.

keyven

No, the problem here was overestimating the intelligence of people using the platforms. It is designed like every other train station in the world, and is in no way lacking any basic safety precautions that is prevalent in most train stations all over the world.

"Made safe" is a loaded point, because everyone has a very different definition of safety. If the government were to listen to the most paranoid road-user, every highway would have a speed limit of 20 mph, while cyclists would need to wear gloves, knee-guards, goggles and helmets.

Better safe than sorry eh?

bruce19

I was thinking about this very subject early this morning. Everything we do in life comes with some measure of risk. Where to draw the line between lowering the risk by law and relying on individuals to reduce risk will always be a subject of contention. We alternate between railing at government for failure to protect us from exploding Pinto gas tanks and defective GM ignition switches to over reach on things like motorcycle helmet laws and firearms laws. It really is a tricky line to find if you are part of a legislative body with a multitude of opinions and the force of lobbying groups brought to bear.

kickstart

Education, infrastructure, safety, that's a lot to cover with limited resources. Obviously there needs to be sound minimum standards, but set those standards too high, and doing nothing becomes the best option. How far do we need to go to accommodate the few extremely careless and selfish among us?

noisebeam

Please tell me more about the reason to ride. I need to check that I am not doing anything else that may degrade it.

mapeiboy

A friend of mine whose wife got hit by the second train while crossing the line . She did not hear the second train because of the noise from the first train . People have to be very careful when they cross the rail line .

GP

Amtrak double tracked the line near my house a couple years ago but I never thought about a second train until one night when I was walking the dog. The barrier came down, lights started flashing and the train horn sounded. The train passed by and I started to walk but then I noticed no one was moving. The second train passed and scared the crap out of me.

CbadRider

^^This. It's a railroad crossing, you're supposed to look for trains.

A few times a year, people in my area are hit and killed by trains when they wander onto the tracks. They are usually walking their dogs without a leash and the dog runs onto the track and they chase after it (BTW in most of these cases, the dog gets off the track in time but the person doesn't). The family of one woman tried to sue Amtrak to get them to put fences along the tracks, and they lost.

If you're out and about, you have a certain personal responsibility to check your surroundings for safety and not do something stupid. You can't be oblivious to everything around you and expect the world to cater to you in order to keep you safe.

FBinNY 

There's a core disagreement here. You keep claiming the design is unsafe, while many (including) me feel that the design is fine as is asfar as the crossing is. There are standard railroad bucks on either side, and while there are no gates for the MUP, the road gates are pretty obvious.

If the rider was coming from the station he'd obviously know there was a railroad there, and he'd be facing the road gates. If coming from the other direction, there would be the curbside flashing lights to his right, plus the gates visible from a greater distance as he approached. IMO the only person who would be at risk from the "poor design" would be a deaf person with tunnel vision who kept his eyes down on the path 5 yards ahead, and was totally oblivious to his surroundings. Even that person, would see the rails themselves.

We cannot protect people from every possible hazard, and wouldn't want to live where that was the standard. People, including cyclists on MUPs, need to take some responsibility for their own safety and exercise some level of care.

BTW- I find the theory that the victim didn't know a train was coming stretches credulity. I suspect that the cyclist knew there was a train, but figured she had enough time to beat it. I see this behavior where gates exist and come down well before the train passes. People become aware of the timing, and figure that there's enough time between the dropping of the gates and the train to shoot the gap. Most make it, some don't.

JoeyBike

Just for the record, I am fine with you or anyone else wearing ear buds while cycling. I have done it on country rides using a rear view mirror. Speaking JUST FOR ME, it would be suicide for me to dull my sense of hearing in the burbs or inner city grid unless I drastically altered my riding style.

I-Like-To-Bike

Another possibility is that she figured she did not have enough time to beat it, but no one (including any insurance company) will ever be able to know/prove otherwise. IMO that possibility does not strain credulity, and to ignore or poo-poo it is to consign all speculation to only PC approved possibilities.

CB HI

Try to differentiate bike paths from train stations. It is clear to most, my post is talking about bicycle facilities.

john.b

Go back and look at the aerial view. There are no lights, cross arms, or "road gates" to alert someone traveling northbound on that MUP. Any visual signal would be perpendicular. There are no signals facing the MUP traffic, and the road signals are all 90° from her direction of travel.

Also, If you read the top comment from the story on santafenewmexican.com (linked back in post 16 of this thread), someone who claims to have known this woman well said she never rode with headphones on and didn't own a Walkman or iPod.

Another person posts the fact that this municipality has a waiver to the rule requiring train horns to being sounded at intersections, so-called "Quiet Zones". Trains do not sound horns at this intersection.

So many of the assumptions in this thread appear to be bogus.

But, hey, why let facts get in the way of a good rant, right?

achoo

Seems like a cyclist headed north on the trail would have a pretty good view of the gates and lights on the road, though.

Slow down, turn that 90 degree corner, and see the train a few hundred feet away? I could easily see someone coming out of that turn, going slow, worrying about falling over and other obstructions to miss, and thinking they had enough time to make it over the tracks before the train got there.

Because in just a short glance, that train isn't going to look like it's going 40 mph or even faster. But in reality it's going to close the distance to the crossing just as fast as you will on your bike.

We'll never know, but I do think it's a perception thing. Trains just don't look like they're going that fast. Especially assuming she only looked at it for a short time as she was coming out of the turn. Toss in that turn and who knows what else that could have grabbed her attention, and she tied the train in an inadvertent race to a crossing.

CB HI

The RR crossing alone is fine. The street crossing with traffic flow alone is fine. The street crossing salmon style is dangerous. The RR crossing, combined with two 90 degree turns and a street crossing is a poor design.

I suspect that she may have been trying to get to the train station before the train. If so, bad risk taking, but that does not make the RR crossing, combined with two 90 degree turns and a street crossing, a good design. A good design may have been the last link that could have saved this woman from death and made the path and crossing safer for everyone.

FBinNY 

As I said, there's a core disagreement here, and I'm happy to leave it at that.

IMO any assumption that the victim could have been unaware of the train is too much of a leap. So (opinion) there are two possibilities remaining.

1- she knowingly was racing to beat the train and miscalculated, or
2- she was attempting suicide by train, so as to have plausible denial of her intent.

In the absence of a reason for assuming the second, I'll assume the first, but I won't assume or accept that she wasn't aware of the train, earbuds or not.

CB HI

Or, no earbuds, no train whistle due to quite zone, 90 degree turn after crossing street, view blocked by truck between red light and train crossing (which would also block the gates being down on the road). Her only mistake may have been that she got too use to being able to cross the RR tracks without stopping because she always had a clear view before.

You are being too harsh on her by ignoring this possibility.

FBinNY 

You're right. I mentioned this possibility in my first post here, and it's possible she simply wasn't thinking. But I still find it hard to believe that she could be that unaware, though yes, it's possible.

But it still comes back to the question of people being responsible for their own safety. She had to know there was an active railroad, and though it's sad to have a death penalty for this kind of mistake, sometimes life is harsh.

02Giant 

There isn't any way you could pass through that area and cross the tracks and not know there is the potential for a train. Stop, look, and listen would have saved her life...if she wanted.