re: #137 wheat-dogghazi-mailgate

Amazing the engineer survived, but losing both legs means the end of his career. Damned shame.

The truck driver has a lot to answer for, so he may be sorry he survived.

We have train fatalities here in my town, but usually not involving vehicles. The main line divides the city in half, and there are few if any pedestrian overpasses, so there’s the occasional train-person accident. People often misjudge how fast a train is moving, because you usually only see it coming head on. Within a couple of eye blinks, that train could be right next to you — or where you once were.

Yeah, that truck driver’s gonna probably wish he was killed in the accident. He’s most likely looking at manslaughter charges.

The barriers here are designed to break away - even a passenger car will do. The police tell you (here at least) that if your car is trapped between the barriers, just punch it and break the barrier. Doing that will immediately send an emergency signal that halts train traffic; it’s a safety feature.

Now if your car stalls on the tracks, well…….I guess that’s a different story. Then you better hustle and lift the barrier manually (which you can also do) and that too sends an emergency signal.

Seems like the truck driver panicked and bailed. A normal instinctual reaction, I guess - I’d run like hell too if I saw a train bearing down on me at 100+ km/h.

The truck driver’s been identified as a Polish national, with the truck being from Poland as well (we’re only nine miles from the Czech-Polish border). Perhaps railway barriers are different in Poland. I don’t know….but I do know he’s in a hell of a lot of trouble.