bruce19

You Won't Believe How Close This Man Came To Being Killed By A Train

bruce19

3. She wanted to be famous on bikeforums.net.

kickstart

Are the gates in those "silent zones" silent also?

howsteepisit

And all the stopped traffic would offer no hint that a train was near.

02Giant 

The driver of the car should have ran the DA over after the gates lifted.

CB HI

That comment is really uncalled for and not at all funny.

CB HI

Not when they were also stopped for the red traffic light that allowed her to cross the roadway.

kickstart

I noticed if you follow the trail north to the next crossing at Siringo rd, the trail again crosses the rail line with no gate for the trail, and the same at the next crossing to the south on Rodeo. All 3 unguarded trail crossings are within a mile of the incident and are all similar in layout.
If you zoom in on the gate post near the 90 deg. turn, a warning chime is visible at the top.

howsteepisit

So no traffic noise due to stopped traffic and you still don't think anyone would notice a train. Sure.

Chris516

This indirectly reminded me of something. Connected to the one lane bridge I had mentioned in another thread. When the bridge was closed at one point last year, the grade-level crossing was the only way to locally cross the tracks. During that time, I saw several times where motorists' drove around the gates despite an oncoming train. I know driving around the gates and, wearing earbuds while approaching a crossing are different.. I am connecting the behavior of a need to cross the tracks without paying attention.

howsteepisit

Well not paying attention in the natural world often has fatal consequences. Only Man tries to cheat nature by trying to outsmart stupidity.

CB HI

So what magic stopped the noise from the traffic going north/south and is still moving?

02Giant 

Where was this stated?

howsteepisit

I was confused as to which traffic was stoped in your scenario of some stopped, some moving cars resulting in a distraction large enough to miss a train rolling down the tracks. But regardless, we will disagree, because I just do not see this as an unsafe track crossing for even the most casual of cyclists, and for those that aggressively would seek to beat a train, well thats their choice which would likely be impossible to engineer in enough safety devises to prevent decidedly negative outcome.

CbadRider

The woman who was hit was riding westbound. She should have seen the lowered gates and flashing lights.

MMACH 5

Do you mean she was southbound and following the trail, she would go west to cross the tracks? If that were her direction of travel, it does seem like she'd see the warnings, as she crossed the road.

CbadRider

According to the news story, the train was southbound and the woman was riding westbound, so they were perpendicular to each other. She should have seen the train moving toward her on the tracks.

MMACH 5

That's from this story:
Questions linger after death of avid bicyclist in train collision - The Santa Fe New Mexican: Local News

MMACH 5

And the mystery does deepen. The latest story from the Santa Fe New Mexican says the police have found no earphones at the scene of the collision.

Police: No earphones found at scene of cyclist?s death - The Santa Fe New Mexican: Local News

FBinNY 

The article includes a nice photo clearly showing the railroad bucks on either side along the bike trail, which I asserted a few times and which others deny.

I think it's fair to assume that the rider must have known of the railroad line, though there's no way to know if she knew of the train, misjudged it's speed and distance, or whatever factor may have contributed. I don't like to blame the victim, but in this case, I don't feel anyone but the victim can be blamed.

That said, we've all (or at least Me and everyone I know) have had lapses that could have had fatal results. IMO- lapses of attention or judgement shouldn't be death penalty offenses, but unfortunately the laws of nature are harsher than the laws of man.

I

howsteepisit

At this point, I am wondering if the cyclist had some kind of sudden disorienting medical condition. She certainly did not appear (in the news articles anyway) to be a scofflaw cyclist or a speed crazed daredevil, or drug/alcohol addict, and there seems to be little to suggest she could have not known the train was there...Horns were sounded, bells were ringing, gates across nearby street was down.

Condolences to her family and loved ones.

I doubt we will ever know the reality of what happened.

FBinNY 

No we'll never know. It's possible, that it was a simple lapse. She might have been preoccupied, or so familiar with the crossing which she'd crossed dozens of times, that she simply didn't think.

I wouldn't be blaming her at all, except to counter those who insist that poor design or some factor other than the victim was at fault. Stuff happens, people make mistakes, and sometimes there's no one to blame except to say that someone suffered a severe penalty for a minor lapse.

BTW- be honest with yourself. How many times have you crossed a pair of railroad tracks without stopping and looking? I lost count decades ago. I'd like to believe it's not just luck and I'd have been aware enough if there were a train, but who knows.

john.b

As I pointed out earlier, there apparently were no earphones. That was a fiction invented in the original story, supposedly a claim by an unnamed witness told to an unsourced reporter. The woman's friend says she didn't even own a Walkman or iPod.

She was riding northbound on the MUP, her westbound travel would have been for all of three feet. The aerial photograph bears this out. The gates and flashing lights for the road were perpendicular to her direction of travel, except for those last few feet, where there are no lights or cross arms for MUP traffic.

achoo

And I'm guessing she saw that the train was a few hundred yards if not farther away, in front of her, with the turn coming up. It wouldn't surprise me if she thought she had plenty of time to get across before the train made it to the crossing and just kept going after the turn without looking again.

If that maneuver took her 10 seconds, off-the-top-of-my-head-math says a train going 40 mph would go about 500 feet in those ten seconds. A train 500 feet away coming almost right at you isn't going to look like it's going 40 mph. A train going 60 mph would cover almost 900 feet in 10 seconds.

howsteepisit

I measured the distance from the center of the sidewalk to the first rail in Google Map - its abut 12 feet, so at 10 mph thats just over 1 second, so really it would have taken a cyclist 2-3 seconds from turing to being at the rail. According to the newspaper, trains generally travel 30 mph in the area, but the true speed is not yet known, but at 30 mph, 3 seconds is 126 feet, 2 seconds is 88 feet, so in reality, based on the reported information tran was about 100 feet away traveling at 30 mph when she turned the corner....not 500 to 1000 feet. Looking at the reported information is always better than just guessing.