Login
or
Register
Home
»
Trains Magazine
»
Forums
»
General Discussion
»
Car v train in Lombard IL
Edit post
Edit your reply below.
Post Body
Enter your post below.
[quote user="CShaveRR"][quote user="Bucyrus"][quote user="jeffhergert"] The Des Moines Register in their Dec. 20th edition had this: <p>"Rose Tani, 90, apparently went around a school bus at a railroad crossing in Lombard, Ill., where the gates did not come down, and was hit by the train, according to WLS-TV."[/quote]</p><p>Well is that what happeded or not? It is certainly not an insignigicant detail. If the signals failed, that changes the whole story from what is usually the case with these grade crossing crashes. I think we need to go back and find out what happened.</p><p>If the gates were functioning, I sure would like to see some kind of confirmation that WLS-TV reported they were not. </p><p>Maybe the gate came down on the school bus, and could not fully lower. Maybe the school bus driver is partly at fault for stopping too close to the crossing. </p><p>It certainly would be interesting to learn what actually happened in this news event.</p><p>ALSO: "Passing a stopped school bus" is a very loaded statement. You cannot pass them when they are stopped with their lights flashing and stop arm extended. And you cannot pass anything at a railroad crossing. But you can pass a stopped school bus if its lights are not flashing and stop arm is not extended. And a stopped school bus <u>does</u> obstruct the view.</p><p>Let me ask this: When school buses stop at a grade crossing, are their drivers supposed to turn on the flashing stop lights and extend the stop arm? Or are they prohibited from doing so? Or is it optional?[/quote]</p><p>Please read my post right above yours. I was within a couple of hundred feet of the accident scene within about ten minutes of the time it happened, arriving soon after ambulance and fire equipment. The gate for northbound traffic was fully lowered, and signal lights were flashing. The school bus was an adequate distance back from the lowered gate.</p><p>You're right--you can't pass a school bus, and you can't pass anything at a grade crossing. You can't drive around lowered gates, either--but she attempted to. Also, Mrs. Tani was a local resident, and, according to her children, drove only on familiar roads. None of this makes sense--as I said before, one has to wonder what she was thinking as she did all of the things she did.</p><p>School buses in Illinois, when they perform the mandatory stop for grade crossings, usually flash yellow flashers, stop, and open the door to listen. Putting on the red lights and extending the stop flag (the "arm" on our school buses extends forward to prevent students from cutting too close in front) would require oncoming traffic to stop--right on the crossing. Forget about that!</p><p>As I also mentioned, the media aren't always the brightest bulbs in the string. WMAQ TV gave the wrong grade crossing in their report (in this case the "miss" [i]was[/i] nearly a mile!), WBBM Radio reported that it was a Metra train that hit the car (UP stack train--not even a Metra engine to confuse anybody), so if WLS reported gates not lowered, it might have been a little more malicious, but was still par for the course.</p><p>Eventually, of course, we'll have the download from the grade crossing itself, and just possibly an on-board camera. But I'm not worried.</p><p>[/quote]</p><p>CShaveRR, </p><p>Thanks for the information. I agree that most TV reporters often have no idea what they are saying. Their biggest sin is leaving things out such as failing to address the 600-pound gorilla question that is the underpinning of their story. They also bias their reporting according to the dictates of political correctness. </p><p>I have seen FOX 9 TV report a car/truck collision and actually try to imply blame on the truck driver because the people in the car fit a media template of victimhood. But the car entered a highway at right angles without yielding to the truck. The truck driver had no way of avoiding the collision. Yet FOX 9 went back and dug up his driving record, which indicated that he had failed to stop for a stop sign in the past. To make their point that the truck driver was bad, FOX reported that he <em>BLEW</em> through a stop sign. </p><p>Obvioulsy their embellishment with the word, "BLEW" was intended to reinforce their implication that the truck driver had to be bad because the people in the car were good. Other than their snide insinuation that the truck driver was at fault, they made no objective mention of the actual subject of fault in this serious accident that resulted in the deaths of several people in the car.</p><p>I only bring up the questions of the role of the school bus and the gate/signal performance, because the WLS report calls it all into question. Falsely reporting that the gates malfunctioned in a fatal grade crossing accident needs to be addressed. I will call WLS next week, and ask them for an explanation and source of their information. </p>
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag
Update Reply
Join our Community!
Our community is
FREE
to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.
Login »
Register »
Search the Community
Newsletter Sign-Up
By signing up you may also receive occasional reader surveys and special offers from Trains magazine.Please view our
privacy policy
More great sites from Kalmbach Media
Terms Of Use
|
Privacy Policy
|
Copyright Policy