Ryan
Court Jester
There's nothing moral or immoral about banning devices that distract you from driving. Are the FRA regs against cell phones in the cab legislating morality? What about the FAA's sterile cockpit rules?
Two killed when Amtrak train hits car
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PaulM
Engineer
Wow! I'm having a hard time communicating. I'm NOT suggesting that BANNING cell phone use while driving is immoral; rather that USING a cell phone while driving IS. The crack about legislating morality was just my way of saying that if someone is ........ (you fill in the blank) enough to actually use one while driving, then a law against it is unlikely to change the behavior. However, I wouldn't mind seeing my theory shot down; i.e., seeing that putting a few people behind bars did change the behavior.
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MattW
Conductor
For at-night, why not just add some sort of lights to the crossings? (not every crossing, and not Luxor-hotel bright) Yes, cost, isn't it like $300,000 for each gated crossing installation these days? And that's just for the basic double-gate system. Maybe some LEDs that point toward the tracks and only operate on crossing activation?
Meh, it's just a thought to improve RR crossing safety even just a little.
Meh, it's just a thought to improve RR crossing safety even just a little.
Green Maned Lion
Engineer
Why do we want them safer? To deprive the human race of a little more natural selection?
This appears to be from the mother's Facebook page, taken not too long ago.
Another picture of the mother:
Some of the comments on the page linked by the picture are a bit idiotic, but I suppose the posters were simply trying to be helpful.
Another picture of the mother:
Some of the comments on the page linked by the picture are a bit idiotic, but I suppose the posters were simply trying to be helpful.
Because dear child, one day one of the vehicles being driven by one of these barrier dodging fools will end up under the wheels of the loco pulling the train you or someone you care about (if indeed you do) and I doubt you will be saying the same thing then. Or maybe you will, I don't know.
So, just so you understand, it is a bad thing to let road vehicles to get in the path of moving trains, making the crossing safer may well stop the Darwinism Award bid by the driver, but it will make it safer for the crew and passengers in the train.
Green Maned Lion
Engineer
I'm sorry, Neil, but unlike far too many of my human friends, I am not such a hypocrite that my opinions change when things happen to me. I consider the rare situation where a train gets heavily delayed due to at-grade collision related derailments or when someon onboard actually gets killed from it (even rarer), to be a reasonable price for the preservation of natural selection. If it happened to someone I love, and I do love people (although most assuredly not you!) I would be very sad about the loss of that person. But I would not consider that the "safety issue" that caused it would be at fault. Just the idiot that ran the crossing.
Unfortunately, sometimes real morons take some of the better ones with them. Its unfortunate, but unavoidable.
We leave too many stupid people alive. Idiocy (and other things that make you unfit for survival) is supposed to kill people off naturally. That is the way we evolved to this point. Preventing it is like putting a brake on evolution.
Unfortunately, sometimes real morons take some of the better ones with them. Its unfortunate, but unavoidable.
We leave too many stupid people alive. Idiocy (and other things that make you unfit for survival) is supposed to kill people off naturally. That is the way we evolved to this point. Preventing it is like putting a brake on evolution.
So are you advocating a cull of the lame, sick and diseased members of society then? Or do we just get rid of the social cripples?
Aloha
GML and Neil_M you are both intelligent opinionated people. Sometime your post are very provocative and useful for thought. Then at other time when you both, and others, Start sniping at each others the differences in opinions becomes wasted, and lost in the petty bickering. May I ask that you respect each other and Us by not resorting to the bickering. Learn to understand each other, acknowledge the differences, embrace what you agree with, and understand/accept on many issues you will never agree.
I guess I just made a new year wish for better times
Mahalo
Eric/GG-1
GML and Neil_M you are both intelligent opinionated people. Sometime your post are very provocative and useful for thought. Then at other time when you both, and others, Start sniping at each others the differences in opinions becomes wasted, and lost in the petty bickering. May I ask that you respect each other and Us by not resorting to the bickering. Learn to understand each other, acknowledge the differences, embrace what you agree with, and understand/accept on many issues you will never agree.
I guess I just made a new year wish for better times
Mahalo
Eric/GG-1
T
Tony
Guest
The long line of cars were only the ones heading north. So, possibly, it was the signals for the other side of the tracks; the one for the south bound vehicular traffic, wasn't working?
T
Tony
Guest
So, Caitlyn Holder was lying when she reported as an eyewitness, they weren't working? Why would she lie?
Ryan
Court Jester
Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable.
It's also possible that the malfunction is an intermittent one.
It's also possible that the malfunction is an intermittent one.
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TransitRider
Service Attendant
- Joined
- Sep 30, 2009
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- 107
North Carolina has the highest percent of Amtrak accidents, this needs to be fixed.
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- 289
GML, this is a comment about natural selection, not about your post or your thoughts.
Y'all are using the term natural selection incorrectly. Look in a biology textbook and you will find something like the wikipedia definition, "Natural selection is the process by which heritable traits that make it more likely for an organism to survive and successfully reproduce become more common in a population over successive generations. It is a key mechanism of evolution."
So running your car into a train is bad for everyone involved, but it probably is not a good example of natural selection. Being distracted, being stupid, not being able to judge the speed of a train, and trying to commit suicide may be factors linked to accidents, but these are not heritable traits.
That's definately not true that NC has the highest percentage. I agree that we need to fix the number of accidents, but NC definately is not on top. I just pulled up the FRA stats for NC and Florida, and Florida wins hands down.
Code:
Total Highway Rail Accidents
Yr 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09
NC 8 6 7 7 4 6 5 6 8 9
FL 15 10 8 12 11 10 11 12 12 7
Is this really true. There are several requirements for a grade crossing for it be be totally horn-free. I know that quad-gates must be installed so drivers can't go around them. Plus some kind of obstacle in the center of the road. Also I believe there are indications to the engineer so he/she can tell if the gates are working properly or if there is still a car stuck in the middle of the tracks. Therefore they can sound the horn if needed.
Ryan
Court Jester
I would argue that these are.
Green Maned Lion
Engineer
Neil, I did not suggest culling anyone. I merely suggest not going to excessive measures to prevent them from culling themselves.
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amtrakwolverine
Engineer
i'd prefer they install those safety measures that way im not inconvenienced on a LD train for X numbers of hours when the train hits and kills someone. when I'm on a train to the AU gathering or making a connection i want to make that hotel check in time or connection. why should i have to be put up in a hotel over night and get charged by my hotel for a no show cause some idots can't wait 30 seconds for a freaking train to pass. and thats assuming amtrak actully does hold up there end of the contract. and that the crew doesn't outlaw while we wait on some replacement crews that are 2 days away.
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One way that an engineer can tell if a car is stuck on a crossing is by looking out the front window and seeing a car stuck on the crossing. I suppose some sort of indicator can be used to inform an engineer of a stuck car at a crossing on blind curve (and I believe such indicators are used in some places in Europe), but I'm pretty sure that even if an engineer finds out there is a car stuck on the tracks at the crossing in the middle of the next bend, he won't be able to do too much to prevent an accident, unless the train is already going very slow at the time.
It depends what you mean by "excessive". Seeing as a lot of your countrymen are too terminally dim to recognize red lights and a barrier down in front of some rail tracks as a warning sign, then even adding 2 extra barriers to the crossing might stop some of the fools mashing themselves up.
Despite your rather lame claim that it is ok for these fools to kill themselves (and others) on the railway, the fallout from these incidents that keyboard clowns like you never will have to deal with means that it is generally desirable to keep road traffic and trains apart. I am sure that even a supposed self claimed social outcast like yourself might get fed up with pulling bits of body from mangled cars if you were a police or paramedic worker, I know I actively dislike working on rail vehicles involved in such incidents and that comes from years of practical experience, not just talking crap on a forum.
Plus there is the loss of rail vehicles due to damage in these incidents, even you can recognise that Amtrak has not enough vehicles at the moment without having them stopped for collision and derailment repairs? Then there is the appearance to the traveling public that Amtrak is an unsafe way to travel, even though these events are very rarely, if ever, Amtrak's fault. People just see a pile of wreckage on the TV and assume trains are dangerous.
One day one of these barrier dodging clowns will cause a major accident, one train derails and then ends up being hit by one traveling the other way or other random permutation, just you wait and see.
Check out 'Upton Nervert' to see what happens when a car is where it shouldn't be. Even someone such as yourself might realise it was not a nice thing to happen. Or maybe not, maybe pretending to be like that makes you feel better about yourself.
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G
Guest_George Harris_*
Guest
If you could look over the shoulder of the engineer, and on some trains in push mode, you can effectively do so, you would see how rediculous this statement is.
Looking down the track, you will see vehicles moving across the road crossings ahead, some slow, some faster some instop and go mode, and by the time you figure out that someone is on the crossing with the gates coming down and will not get clear, it is simply to late to get stopped before you get to the crossing.
Green Maned Lion
Engineer
I am aware of what it means. People who do not drive a car in a fashion that keeps them paying attention and making intelligent, and correct decisions are less suited to being in a world where automobiles exist then those of us who make more of an effort to drive properly. They are more likely to get killed then those of us who are more careful. They are thus naturally selected based on lacking the trait of being careful when driving an automobile.
Being stupid is an inherited trait. There is a clear causality between intelligence in parents and the intelligence of their youth. Likewise, the capabilities of intelligent, education oriented parents tend to pass this on to their children- which thus being a little less genetic in nature, isn't quite as you are specifying, but is also a matter of fitness. Sometimes you are hindered by your parents.
Care is also a function of both genetics and environment. The more care ones parents teach, the more care one has, the more care one passes on to ones children. Not all of the genetic traits in a society where parents tend to rear their own young are passed on through deoxyribonucleic acid.
I'm sorry, but chances are the woman who gets her car hit by a train is less likely to be a good parent, and thus less likely to bring good offspring into the world. Be it genetic, or the end product of bad raising, or both.
My care in driving a car to the extent that I have always paid full attention to the road, and have never really talked or texted on a cell phone while driving, means I am less likely to be unable to have offspring then one who does this. It is that simple. Darwinism doesn't kill all the bad examples every time. It is a slow process.
It happens. It is unfortunate. That doesn't mean it shouldn't.
I'm not unaware that it could eventually effect me. If it does, so the world turns.
If you could look over the shoulder of the engineer, and on some trains in push mode, you can effectively do so, you would see how rediculous this statement is.
George, if you had read the rest of my comment, you would see how ridiculous your statement is.
George Harris
Engineer
Maybe you better re-read what I said. By the time you realize by looking out the window that a car will not clear the crossing it is too late to get stopped, unless you are moving really slow. A train does not perform the same as an automobile.
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