Fire Engine vs. Light Rail

[kenneo]

Train hit the fire truck dead center and nearly killed one fireman. Law states that the fire truck had the right-of-way. So, unless the pre-emption device failed, which it did not, doesn't matter who did what when. Train driver is at fault no questions asked. Shoot first. Ask never.

[Anonymous]

A recreation of the accident showed that the fire truck should have had a green, and MAX should have had a red block, but the LRV may have already passed the signal when the interrupt kicked in.

Bottom line? Both had the right-of-way as far as they knew, and neither did anything wrong or negligent. Another case of technology showing it's imperfections.

[tree68]

Fortunately no one was killed, and only one injury required hospitalization.

It appears that both the train and the fire truck had traffic preemption devices - which normally gives them the green light. I doubt that both got a green, but both probably assumed that they did. It'll be a hard one to sort out - traffic lights don't log what time they changed, plus it's not likely there was any videotape running at the time. You can bet they'll be taking a close look at how that and similar rail/street intersection signals are set up.

And you can't always rely on witness statements. Last night I worked an accident after which one of the vehicle occupants referred to the "green light." The traffic control device in question is flashing - red for one direction, amber the other.....

[ericsp]

Here are some links. A fire and having to rescue one of their crews, I wonder if they had to request mutual aid.

http://www.trains.com/Content/Dynamic/Articles/000/000/005/650rguoi.asp
http://cms.firehouse.com/content/article/article.jsp?sectionId=46&id=37974
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1104757093149710.xml

To view a better photograph, go to the link below and click on "Monday's Photos" below the "January 3, 2005" heading.
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/photos/