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[quote user="Informed"] [quote user="Bucyrus"]  But what was the actual direct evidence that the signals were not working?  I want to know exactly how the physical evidence supported and proved that the vehicle was in the proper lane when it was hit.  Was there fresh damage to the roadway or crossing surface that was within the proper lane for the vehicle?  Were there tire skid marks running parallel with the tracks, and beginning within the proper lane for the vehicle?   The news report linked with this thread says that the police said that the evidence at the scene was consistent with a vehicle running around the lowered gate.  What evidence were they talking about?  How do you reconcile their conclusion with your contention that the evidence showed the car to be in the proper lane when hit?   The traffic laws state that the crossbuck at the crossing constitutes a yield sign that requires a driver to look for trains and yield if any are approaching whether the signals are activated or not.  The driver failed to yield.  Doesn’t that place him at fault for the crash?  [/quote]   To your point, all of the physical evidence put the vehicle in the correct lane of travel.  The physical evidence included scrap marks on the pavement, fluid splatter, skid marks, and other debris.  Further tests and analysis, including use of an exemplar vehicle, proved that it was physically impossible to maneuver the exemplar vehicle around the gate and put it in the place that the vehicle was impacted by the locomotive.  Simply put (I'm not an accident reconstruction expert), the vehicle could not have been impacted where it was, if the gates were down as originally claimed. With respect to the assignment of fault, the jury's decision was that 90% fault was assigned to BNSF, and 10% fault was assigned to the driver.  I'm not qualified to speculate on the legal question that you pose above with respect to failure to yield. [/quote] Thank you for that information.  I appreciate the insight you have provided and the clarity of your statements.  As I understand it, the crash scene evidence places the car within its proper lane of travel at the point that it was struck dead center by the train.  It has been reported that the car was verified to have been traveling at 28 mph at the point of impact.   <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p> I further understand that actual vehicle testing at the site proved conclusively that the car, when struck, was positioned in its own lane, parallel with it, and that it could not have gotten into that position had it run around the first gate.  If that is true, I can see no explanation other than that the gates failed to activate.  <o:p></o:p> But since the whole case pivots on whether the gates and signals were activated, I have lingering questions about the demonstration that proved that the car could not have gotten into the location where it was hit had it run around the first lowered gate.  Did you witness this test?  When you say that this was proven, I have a question about the term, “proven.”  By “proven,” which of the following two definitions do you mean? <o:p></o:p> 1)        The jury simply accepted the outcome of the test with the exemplar vehicle as proof that the car could not have gotten into the location where it was hit had it run around the first lowered gate.   <o:p></o:p> 2)        The test with exemplar vehicle proved that outcome in a scientific manner that would with withstand the peer review of the scientific community.  <o:p></o:p> I assume that it would be item #1.  I would like to know who did the test.  Was the exemplar vehicle identical to the vehicle that was struck by the train?  Who was driving the vehicle?  Any driver making this desperate maneuver while actually trying to beat a train is going to try as hard as they can to get back into their lane as quickly as possible.  How do you know that the driver of the test vehicle made the maximum effort to get back into his lane before reaching the tracks?   <o:p></o:p> It would be possible to run the test where the only objective was to miss both gates.  If you did that, the car would probably be straddling the two lanes as it crossed the railroad centerline between the two tracks.  But still, it may be possible to get back into the proper lane earlier by steering into that lane tighter after going around the first lowered gate.  If one were to steer tight enough, the car would go into a side skid or roll over.   <o:p></o:p> After going around the first lowered gate, did the test driver push this return steer tight enough to cause the car to go into a side skid, or begin to rise up on two wheels and begin to roll?  If he did not, I don’t see how the test can conclude that the vehicle in the crash could not have gotten into that position if it ran around the first gate when lowered. <o:p></o:p> This might seem like nit picking, but the outcome of this test would be riding a very fine line between proving that the gates were either up or down.   However, in thinking about this further, if the car was southbound and the train eastbound as has been mentioned in this thread, then the car would probably have encountered the train on the first of the two tracks.  I looked at some single-track crossings yesterday.  If the distance between the gate and that first track at the Anoka crossing is similar to the gate-to-track distance in a single track crossing, I think it would be impossible to go around the lowered gate and get fully back into the proper lane and squared up with it upon reaching the track centerline.  It might not be possible at the lowest possible vehicle speed, let alone at 28 mph.  The steering geometry of the vehicle may simply have not permitted the move.
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