Houston train strikes SUV that evaded safety gates

[Old Fart]

METRO Police released dramatic surveillance video showing a train colliding with an SUV, says the Houston Chronicle. The driver tried to beat the train and went around the crossing gates at Fannin and Naomi on Wednesday, according to METRO.

http://newsok.com/video-houston-train-strikes-suv-that-evaded-safety-gates/article/3949814



Watch the video here: http://www.khou.com/video/raw/Raw-METRO-train-smashes-into-red-light-runner-253465831.html


A true "Oh CRAP!" moment.

 

[Junior Bonner]

Gee whiz! I hope no one got hurt!

 

[retrieverman]

Gee whiz! I hope no one got hurt!

Stupid hurts!!!

 

[Junior Bonner]

Stupid hurts!!!

It may be that there was only the driver in that SUV. If there was a passenger the results would have been much worse. I feel badly for everyone involved.

 

[Cohiba]

I was living in Houston when they put the train through downtown.

Drunk people would drive on the rails and rear end the train or head on crash.

People would drive around the flashers amd warning arms...bang!! Another car bite the dust.

For some reason H-town folks just loooooove to temp fate with that train...

 

[cscokd]

Two adults and two children, nobody seriously hurt. But that driver is an idiot. If you pay close attention to the beginning of the video, you will notice that the SUV runs the light and avoids the arms as they are coming down, then does an illegal U-turn and goes back over the tracks weaving through the arms. And they are actually angled where someone had to see the train coming! You now have to wonder if the driver was attempting to kill either the passenger or everyone.

 

[Junior Bonner]

Two adults and two children, nobody seriously hurt. But that driver is an idiot. If you pay close attention to the beginning of the video, you will notice that the SUV runs the light and avoids the arms as they are coming down, then does an illegal U-turn and goes back over the tracks weaving through the arms. And they are actually angled where someone had to see the train coming! You now have to wonder if the driver was attempting to kill either the passenger or everyone.

I hope that the driver is issued some sort of citation.

 

[JRSherman]

I went to work for BNSF last year as a conductor/switchman and was shocked to get to learn how many people do this. As much as people in Claremore hate us, I hate that town for this reason.

People are abnormally crazy around the tracks. While returning a train to Tulsa, a man was walking directly down the tracks in the same direction we were traveling at 40mph. Constantly blowing our horn, he waited until we were roughly 30 yards away before removing himself from our path of travel.

Last Christmas Eve, en route to Ft. Scott, we left the yard and started into downtown Tulsa. Approaching Elgin St, I kept thinking that a pair of headlights was in the wrong place to be on the road. I talked to my engineer and we slowed down and stopped, agreeing a car was on the tracks. Sure enough, a drunk had turned directly onto the tracks after closing time.

The one that still gives me chills, though, was shuttling a train out west of the yard to a siding we call Shirk, almost out to Keystone Dam. There are some curves just west of the yard with a 30mph limit, which we were close to. Coming around one of these curves, we were 15 seconds from 3 generations of a family taking pictures on the tracks. They split, just in time, but I would have loved to slap the picture taking mom of this group, as she literally stayed 3 feet off the track. If we would have had a wide load, or loose straps, overhanging boards, anything that can be commonplace dangers, she would have been dead in the face of her entire family. By the time we would have got stopped and been able to report it, she would be beyond help.

If you don't belong on them, just don't get on them. Help us help you stay alive.

 

[Buddhaman]

It always amazed me that people die or get hurt on train tracks. It's not like the train suddenly jumps off the tracks and chases you down in your car. There is an obvious path that the train takes and it doesn't change. I hope the idiot driver has to pay for any damages to the train.

 

[n423]

I hope that the driver is issued some sort of citation.

And a little jail time