Originally Posted by
Hippiebrian
I was a railroad engineer for a few years. The public has no idea how many people were struck and killed by trains because they had on headphones/earbuds and couldn't hear them coming. On my section of track alone it was 2 or 3 a year that I heard of, and there were certainly some I didn't hear about. I never wear them unless I'm just sitting.
Around here we have more train/ped fatalities from cell phones than from headsets -- it's not the inability to hear an oncoming train, it's the distraction that prevents recognizing the sound of an oncoming train as a danger. Their ears pick up the sound, it just doesn't register that they need to get out of the way.