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ChineseCrash Friday: Gold Line and Metrolink Go Boom
This picture is not from today’s wreck, but one in 2007. Courtesy of waltarrrrr via Flickr.
Imagine, if you will, a traffic signal. Now imagine that the red light is lit. What do you do? You stop. Why? Because it means that cars are crossing in front of you and if you were to not heed the red light, your would be struck by the passing cars. Now imagine a traffic signal, lit red, with a gate in front of it physically blocking the intersection and bells clanging loudly. The point cannot be driven home any further.
Yet, time and time again it seems that people, from the same species that invented the traffic signal and the crossing gate and the cars and trains and city that they reside in, cannot for the life of them manage to comprehend these direct messages that clearly imply “do not cross”. And so they do cross, which invariably leads to them being hit by a Gold Line train or a Metrolink train.
Such incidents happened on this very day. According to CBS2. com, two people were taken to the hospital today after a 73- year old driver decided to ignore that which she’s had 73 years to learn, and drove under a lowered gate crossing arm only to be hit by the coming train. Luckily it seems no one was seriously injured, the driver and a train passenger were taken to the hospital for minor injuries, but her Lexus suffered major damage and the train suffered moderate damage. While we wish the driver a swift recovery, we do hope someone gives her a remedial lesson in the children’s game “red light, green light”.
The San Gabriel Valley Tribune presents us with another tale of train vs. car, this time with a Metrolink slamming into a big-rig trailer that was conveniently backed through the crossing gates and onto the tracks. Only one of the 500 passengers on board the train was injured, and the train suffered minor damage. The trailer hit a nearby storage company resulting in damage to several of the storage units. In addition to taking out the crossing gate, the trailer also took out the traffic signals… but is seems that people don’t pay much attention to those things anyway.
Discussion
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Please keep discussions civil: exercise Troll Controll.
Humans: barely even acceptably capable
Two ideas that I think would cut down on this crap pretty quickly–
Red light cameras for grade crossings. Run around gates, get a ticket. Period!
If you ignore crossing warnings while driving a big rig, you loose your truck driving license (and job). That oughta learn ‘em!
bunch of idiots, plain and simple. each and every time this happens i’m blown away again and again. i just can’t wrap my head around the insanely inept and selfish brain one must have to do this.
Well obviously 73 year old Violet who was likely in the car with her grandson must have deliberately put herself, and her child’s child in the path of danger. Clearly Granny just wanted to scare the dickens out of the boy.
It continues to amaze me the stark difference between how some rail advocates respond to accidents at at-grade crossings.
After spending about 30 seconds looking at the Sycamore Avenue and Arroyo Verde crossing I see 4 major hazards/broken design principles off the bat. That is if the accident actually happened there.
And red light cameras actually increase the number of broadside and rear-end vehicular accidents.
That’s all from me. You may continue with your rituals…
So now any person who has ever run a red light and caused an accident is not at fault? It’s bad design that did it!
I’m sorry, but unless the article is lying (perhaps MetroRiderLA’s granny killing thugs have infiltrated CBS2’s offices), it clearly states she drove under lowered gates and slammed into the right side of a Union Station bound train. Important part: drove under lowered gates.
I’m sorry, but maybe granny should have let her grown grandson son do the driving.
Here’s an aerial view of the grade crossing where the accident occured, Arroyo Verde Road and Sycamore Ave. I’ve marked down some things that make it obviously a grade crossing, namely the big white paint on the street that says RAIL XING, the yellow stripes before the the tracks implying “DANGER”, and of course the quad gates which lower before the train comes creating a physical barrier and as they lower lights flash and bells ring at 85-90dBA per PUC specifications.
Here’s a video of quad-gates at work on the gold line.
Note how the red car in that video ignores the bells and the closing gates and drives across the tracks. Note how the red car slows down before crossing, implying that the driver did see the signals, but then decided to run it anyways.
I have a feeling, unless the gates malfunctioned, that granny played the same dangerous game.
Anyways, I have to go add this one to my shrine of the slain, each prayer candle I light ensures another light rail accident. Muhahahaha.
Surely #1 is that it’s not underground.
An undercrossing is not a crossing hazard nor a design principle, but a crossing design.
And as anyone who has actually been around a crossing gate knows, it’s not possible to drive UNDER a lowered 4-quad gate with a Lexus ES. Nothing other than a midget sitting on a skateboard could go under lowered gates.
Cars get caught in gates, and there are countless conditions (crossing hazards) at the crossing that increase the likelihood of that occurring, and little space to allow recovery in such a situation because of the narrow streets and traffic generators. Perhaps when you get a better understanding of how streets and vehicular traffic actually operate in conjunction with implemented traffic sychronization, and go beyond just basic understanding of sign age, bells and lights you’ll understand what I mean by “crossing hazards” and “broken design principles.”
I’m far from absolving every person in an accident from some blame. But this cult-like mentality that absolves Metro from any responsibility to calculate hazards as part of a comprehensive risk assessment where grade separation is on the table the same as 4-quad gates, or create a system that safely moves people from point A to point B, is more the product of apologia than advocacy.
And by the way, notice how the far side gate comes down long after the nearside. The purpose is so that motorist don’t get trapped in the gate - a major concern of the PUC when 4-quad gates were first being discussed in the ’90s. I believe all (or most of) the Gold Line crossings also have sensors on them to keep the nearside gate up if a car is in the crossing. It’s why the far side gate was up when these incidents occurred back to back at Mission Station in July when I got off the Gold Line:
If granny was still caught in the intersection on the near side it’s most likely because she didn’t come to a halt fast enough or panicked and stopped on the tracks. If she was caught in the crossing on the far side it’s most likely because there was a traffic backup to the crossing, that again, any evaluation of the crossing hazards shows is likely. The report says the damage was mostly to the front end of the car, so it’s likely a combination of all three and possibly more.
here’s the thing, fix expo, i’ve known since i was about 3 that flashing red lights means talk a second and see wut the hell is going on around me. i’m not absolving metro because i have some absolute love for that dumb agency, i’m absolving them because i feel humans ought to be accountable for themselves for once instead of looking for a scape goat. everyone’s looking to get out of their problems by blaming it on someone else. now i’m glad the old lady and her grandson are fine but i feel absolutely no remorse for their stupidity just as i expect none if do something so obviously moronic. responsibility in life is a tough burden but deal with it.
Why do quad gates exist in the first place? Moron control! The only reason for the extra gates (which do indeed create the “trapping dilema”) is because without them morons drive around the lowered gates to beat the train. Quad gates exist in order to try and prevent traffic violators from causing accidents.
If the report is true, and Granny hit the right side of the front car, it means she wasn’t “trapped”, becuase then the train would have broadsided her not vice versa. Given the information we have, it’s clear Ganny was negligent. It wouldn’t be the first time a 70+ driver caused an accident.
If the gates malfunctioned then clearly Metro is to blame. But a malfuncion is an operational error, not a design flaw.
I’m not a Metro apologist, and I’m also not a bad driver apologist. If this intersection has a design flaw, then I would assume accidents would occur there with great frequency (daily,weekly, at least monthly), if thats not the case it’s reasonable to assume driver error/negligence.
The absence of any rebuttal to the design deficiencies I highlighted is noted.
thats good, cuz its clear that u r teh winnarz
lolz
at grade crossings will never be 100% as long as there are idiots like this and idiots like this will always exist. you can make the street part like the red sea and guard the crossing with cruise missiles and threats of the electric chair and mr. or ms. “i’m sick of wasting my time stuck behind this stupid gate for an annoying transit system that i don’t want my tax dollars going to anyway” is gonna go and screw it up for everyone.
lucky for her conscience, her selfishness resulted in the passenger getting only minor injuries.
Just curious FixExpo, but if you believe all at-grade crossings are dangerous, does that go for Amtrak and freight trains and such? I agree that no system is fool proof, but I’m curious how your proposal scales up.
I’d also be interested in some cost-benefit analysis here… injuries, mistakes, and bad design are all realities, but is it really cost-effective or realistic to bury all lines? And even then, whats to stop someone from falling on tracks of an underground rail line, or other such accidents?