mkennedy, post: 385540, member: 7183 wrote: A different elderly person mistook the gas for the brake at my dentist's office the other week. Luckily, the car only bent in the wall, and didn't actually enter the room.
That happens at 7-11's at least twice a day in Florida. Except they usually make it into the store.
That is an ancient rail line with dry weathered ties and the spikes are mostly loose.
Visible skid marks indicate high speed and failure to control vehicle.
Probable damage the insurance company will not find before settlement, needs to go to factory certified mechanic for full inspection, more than most body shops can evaluate.
Glad it is not my worry.............:bomb:
Looks like Oakmont (where I grew up)?
That actually happened to me when I was in college. I rented a car and we went to a friend's parents house in the country to party for the weekend. I was assigned along with my best friend (who died in 1998) to go for a beer run. So we drove into Oil City, and bought a case of beer at the beer distributor located in town. Being unfamiliar with the area, (before GPS), I didn't really know where I was going. I took the next right, and my friend who was trying to read a map belatedly said "turn right!", so I turned again and landed on the railroad tracks, unable to move. A train was approaching at a slow speed, horn blowing, they stopped and of course were pretty pissed, getting down off the engine and yelling at us. I believe this was (maybe not anymore) the same railroad (along the Allegheny River) as Adam's picture, although it is quite a ways upstream and on the opposite side. That was right after I opened the driver's side door into traffic and a car smashed into it. I got a ticket for opening a door into traffic. Needless to say the rental car company was NOT happy. Good thing I had the insurance (Seinfeld episode)
[MEDIA=youtube]HWTMa76BzH0[/MEDIA]
John Hamilton, post: 385597, member: 640 wrote: Looks like Oakmont (where I grew up)?
That actually happened to me when I was in college. I rented a car and we went to a friend's parents house in the country to party for the weekend. I was assigned along with my best friend (who died in 1998) to go for a beer run. So we drove into Oil City, and bought a case of beer at the beer distributor located in town. Being unfamiliar with the area, (before GPS), I didn't really know where I was going. I took the next right, and my friend who was trying to read a map belatedly said "turn right!", so I turned again and landed on the railroad tracks, unable to move. A train was approaching at a slow speed, horn blowing, they stopped and of course were pretty pissed, getting down off the engine and yelling at us. I believe this was (maybe not anymore) the same railroad (along the Allegheny River) as Adam's picture, although it is quite a ways upstream and on the opposite side. That was right after I opened the driver's side door into traffic and a car smashed into it. I got a ticket for opening a door into traffic. Needless to say the rental car company was NOT happy. Good thing I had the insurance (Seinfeld episode)
[MEDIA=youtube]HWTMa76BzH0[/MEDIA]
This is just south of Hulton Road in Oakmont.
Going back about 45 years...we figured out how to trigger the RR crossing lights at Hulton Road, we thought it was fun to turn on the signals (no crossing arms) and watch everybody stop. Simpler times-not near as much traffic back then.
Seriously, I know that cars and RR tracks are no joke. We had a job back in the late 90's to survey 650+ RR crossings in Ohio. That was after a school bus got hung up on the tracks and hit by a train, so we had to do profiles at each crossing, get coordinates, and directions of tracks, number of tracks, width of road, etc. I saw many stupid actions by autos at crossings during that job, people going around crossing arms, not even slowing down or looking when approaching, and a lot worse. Even saw a car get slammed by a train right in front of me. Nobody hurt in that, but the car was destroyed. Cars usually lose in an encounter with a train.
My first job as a surveyor was on a federal survey crew (USACE). We had weekly safety meetings, and one thing that was always emphasized was safety along tracks, as a lot of their projects have tracks going through them, some of them really busy and pretty high speed. As soon as a train was spotted, someone yelled "hot rail", and we had to get as far away as possible (no flagmen back then), and stop all work. It was emphasized that if one train was going by you might not see/hear another one on a parallel track.
At least it looks like about 25mph track. A little more exciting on a mainline with 60mph freight.
John Hamilton, post: 385636, member: 640 wrote: I saw many stupid actions by autos at crossings during that job, people going around crossing arms, not even slowing down or looking when approaching, and a lot worse.
In my neighborhood, one of the two ingress/egress methods crossed a set or two of RR tracks. Traffic light just past the tracks. Apparently, there were enough stupid people who would wait for the red light sitting on the tracks, that ingress/egress was blocked off to vehicular traffic.
A couple years ago, a neighbor told a story of a friend of his who got hit by a light rail train. According to the story, the light to cross the tracks was green, but traffic was backed up on the other side. The train engineer was paying attention to something other than the red light meant for the train and hit the car. Neighbors' response? "He got a new car out of it!" My (and the other person listening to the story) response was "It doesn't matter if the light is green to cross the track, YOU DON'T SIT ON TRACKS!"
