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[quote user="J&S RR"]Something else occured to me as I have reviewed this thread.  Aside from the obvious physical evidence left on-sceen, if the vehicle which was struck was a 2000 plus vehicle, the technology to remove the "black box" can indicate if the vehicle was in fact in motion.  If that is the case, that would definitely throw a wrinkle in the testimony.  Frankly I am half tempted to do a open records request and allow the community to view actual testimony.  Would anyone be interested in this?[/quote]   The article linked to the first post says the vehicle had a black box that proved that it was traveling at 28 mph when hit by the train.  As I mentioned above, that speed raises questions in my mind.  It seems like it would be impossible to dodge the lowered gates at that speed.  However, the speed-sensitive part of dodging the gates is clearing the second gate.  Dodging the first gate is easy because you can start a couple hundred feet back from the crossing if necessary.  But you would only have about 30 feet to swerve back and clear the second gate.  If a driver miscalculated, he or she might successfully dodge the first gate, and yet fail to swerve back quick enough to avoid striking the second gate.    So I do not believe that a vehicle speed too high to dodge the second gate proves that the driver did not dodge the first gate and intended to dodge the second gate.  He might have successfully dodged the first gate, but miscalculated by driving too fast, and was therefore destined to hit the second gate.  If so, he did not hit the second gate because the train hit him before he reached the second gate.    If this scenario is what happened, the car would have left no skid marks as evidence of swerving too hard to dodge the gates.  Yet, as I understand it, the State Patrol concluded that the 28 mph was too fast to dodge the gates without leaving skid marks, and therefore, since no such skid marks were produced, the driver was not trying to dodge the gates.  I think that is a false conclusion considering my above scenario.    Regarding the court records, if you know how to get access to them, I would indeed be interested in seeing them posted here if possible.  We have had a lot of discussions on this forum about these type of pedestrian and vehicle conflicts with trains, and how the railroad is often blamed, even though they would appear to have no responsibility for the mishap.
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