| Posted by jmf on June 17, 2007 | |
It's a disgrace to see how careless people are when a 400,000 pound engine is rubbling towards them and they refuse to stop. Horrible ignorance.
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People won't wait a few seconds for another car to go by. They sure won't wait on a train. The train might be going slow, but all it would take, is for they're car to stall or even hesitate a bit & they'd be dead. I drive a truck and have to deal with idiots lie this every day.
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The gates are only part way down, it's not like this guy went around the gates. And if the train's going 10 MPH, I don't blame this guy for not wanting to get stuck that long. The telephoto makes it look worse than it is.
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They should put in cross bucks with nets hanging below them to stop cars from trying to pass.
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Must've had a REAL hot date in town....
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Man, this scares me on how stupid drivers are. Great catch though Chris.
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Joe's right in that it wasn't really that close, but it's the mentality displayed by the driver that leads to bent metal and squished flesh. If he didn't want to wait, he could easily have gone down a street with no stop signs to the overpass in the background about a mile away. This is a bad spot as just to the right of the frame is a stop light which leads to cars being stopped right on the tracks. Like I said, I'm just waiting for something to happen here, and I almost saw it two years ago when I caught these dolts playing limbo: http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=113563
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I'd agree with Joe on this one. I'm sure all of us (if we weren't taking a picture of it of course!) would go ahead of a train doing 10mph that was a good minute away from crossing the crossing!
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Point is when red lights start flashing your supposed to stop no matter how fast a train is going, this guy in the car must not be a railfan otherwise he would've stopped to watch the extremely lost NS unit go by.
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| Posted by UPRRDrew on June 17, 2007 | |
Glenn is right. If a police officer had witnessed this, the driver would have been fined. The train has the right-of-way (no pun intended), and the driver of the car is clearly in the wrong. I have seen this same scene played-out in front of my train on countless occasions. Lord help the person that I hit because of their "rush" to be somewhere. It's sad how many people have to be injured, or killed, because they thought that they couldn't wait for the train to go through. And to the others that commented about being ok to do this same thing because the train is only going 10 mph - you are all in the wrong. I suggest to those of you that think this maneuver is ok to go and listen to an OLS presentation. You just might actually learn something.
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This was shot with a telephoto lens at 200mm according to the EXIF data, correct? It may appear to have been a close call, but a telephoto lens will always bring distant objects closer to the photographer and objects in the foreground. I don't think this is as close and as life threatening as it looks. Plus, note that the gates aren't even completely down. I'm not condoning trying to beat a gate, but how many more "Ooooo, look at this moron motorist" photos do we need? They're old and tired.
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Nice shot, but how fast was the train moving and this guy had to be really stupid to ignore the horn of a General Electric locomotive.
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| Posted by Dennis Moore on June 18, 2007 | |
Well I must admit I'm not a GE fan, but I do enjoy life. Hmmmm.....sitting watching another GE Dash series locomotive rather than and EMD or old Alco, or foolishly risking my life and the people in the car with me. You don't need a master's degreee to figure this one out.
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It took the lead unit ~39 seconds to get from where it's located in this shot to clear the grade crossing. Certainly not "life threatening" by any means, but the point is to show the danger so that others may learn. Is it worth it? Some people think so, some don't, but in my eyes, this situation is black & white...there's no grey area to mess around in.
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| Posted by JD on June 18, 2007 | |
It appears as though the gate that is lowering is the far-side gate. Maybe the guy was going under the first gate at the moment it activated and began to lower. Anyway, although possibly distorted by a tele lens, it appears that this railfan may have been trespassing himself. What's coming up behind him???
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JD, I can assure I wasn't trespassing to get this shot, but thanks for speculating/accusing. And if you're curious, nothing was coming the other way ;)
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| Posted by NS9957 on May 10, 2008 | |
That's odd, because NS 9765 just led a freight train through Tipton, Indiana today and some people at crossings ignored it. Nice shot!
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