The officer at the scene (Alaska and MLK): “It’s so obvious.”

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Charles Mudede—who writes about film, books, music, and his life in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, the USA, and the UK for The Stranger—was born near a steel plant in Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe. He has no memory...

14 replies on “When a Train Hits a Truck”

  1. They need to put up a sign “Its been XX days since our last resident was stupid enough to beat the train”. Seems to happen about once a month and its almost always in the same MLK area.

  2. That’s because people don’t know how to drive down there. At an nearby intersection, I remember seeing an SUV in the left turn start going randomly. Stop in the middle of the intersection. Wait for like 30 seconds. Start to go in reverse. Stop. Then the light changed and he went. He blocked traffic while he was waiting though.

  3. It’s not that challening an intersection. If you want to make a left turn you have to wait in the left turn lane until the green left turn arrow lights. The challenge – if you want to call it that – is to wait for the signal. It can be a long wait, and some people lack the patience for it.

  4. gah, totally selfish, but I am going to the airport early tomorrow morning and I really need cars and peds to stay the hell out of LINK’s way.

  5. This happens pretty regularly. Even with pedestrians. Its like they expect the train to stop like cars. Its a fucking train! I saw some guy literally strut across the tracks with a train no more than 25 yards away. The train honked and he threw his hands up and fucking DELAYED!!!! People dont get it.

  7. @6 It might not be the most ideal (ie over-roadway tracks), but it is fucking obvious as shit that there are trains there and when they are coming. Big yellow lights flash and there are noises. Anyone who gets hit simply isnt paying attention.

  8. Just put in camera-enforcement at those intersections and this shit will stop immediately.

    They’ll gladly risk an accident (and delaying the commutes of hundreds of transit riders) by ignoring the light, but they’ll NEVER risk a $125 ticket.

  9. @6 – exactly. Because when the light is not only red, but there’s giant flashing signs telling you a train is coming, the natural thing to do is just keep going through the light! Clearly this is an engineering problem and not an “I’m a fucking idiot driver” problem.

  11. Too bad we don’t have grade-separated trains. I know, we voted the monorail down after voting in favor 233 times, but why does this train have to go down to the surface in certain areas? I suppose it’s less expensive, even with the occasional accident.

  12. I don’t know what it’s like to drive down there, but I remember waiting to cross the street at MLK for at least 10 minutes thanks to the fucking train. Because, apparently, if the train is within several miles of a given intersection, no cross traffic is allowed to go through, especially not if you’re on foot. Is it really that hard to understand why people would get fed up with that bullshit?

    I’m sure it’s too late to fix it now, but whoever designed that system ought to be horsewhipped.

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