Lately, there has been at least one Florida Man killed a month for trying to play chicken or stupid with trains.
And yet, the NIMBY crowd in Broward county has decided to go the not-so-safe way.
Because body count matters, I guess. Why give them a warning?
I hope the railroad companies negotiated a good immunity from lawsuits’ deal.
It’s even worse here in Palm Beach county. It seems like every 3 days someone tries to outrun the train and loses. The problem IMHO is that nearby residents are used to slower freight trains usually moving 35 to 45 mph. This new commuter train is running 60 to 80 mph thru residential areas. The body count is going up and we have the same problem of residents not wanting more noise pollution
I grew up in Holland, where trains are both frequent and fast. None ever use their horns, in fact I have no idea if they even have any horns. I could never figure out why horns are mandated here. Isn’t “stop, look, listen” adequate?
These are crossings with at least lights if not gates, right? Lights say “train is coming”.
lights and gates have been known to malfunction. There is a video floating around of a cop that just barely got by a train and the gates did not provide adequate warning.
I live in a small rural community that has four crossings, three of which are within a third of a mile of my house. None of the crossings have heavy traffic even during daylight hours yet some of the engineers seem to delight in using the horn going so far as to riding the horn all the way through town at 3AM. A little restraint would be nice.
Jim, I don’t think it’s a question of delight, I think here in the USA it’s the law that horns must be used at every crossing, at any time of day or night.
I know it’s the law. As I said above, some have been riding the horn in a continuous blast all the way through town. That’s overkill and completely unnecessary as well as rude.
I see lawsuits failing. Why? Because deaf people are unable to hear a horn. This gives hearing-abled people an unfair advantage. Therefore blowing a horn is dicriminatory towards the deaf.
** This Lefty Logic Moment© brought to you by my first half cup of coffee. **
Don’t they have crossing gates? Related data, when Portland light rail extended West, Beaverton put up standard railway crossing gates wherever the tracks crossed a road, Hillsboro just put up warning lights. Hillsboro had a lot more people hit by MAX trains than Beaverton.