*blows air*

[kyburg]

Witnesses told police that they saw the couple shouting at each other inside a 2005 Dodge Magnum that was waiting at the crossing for the oncoming Lancaster-bound train, which was filled with about 125 passengers, to pass. Suddenly, Sands said, the man pulled his car into the opposing lane of traffic, sped past two other waiting cars and the crossing gate, and parked on the tracks.

Some witnesses told police that Funches appeared to have jumped out of the Dodge just as the train hit the vehicle. But police believe that he was ejected from the car when the train hit it -- perhaps while trying to leave the vehicle. The impact sent metal debris flying, with some of the pieces fatally wounding Funches, Sands said.

Detectives believe that Funches placed the car on the tracks with the passenger side facing the train in hopes of killing his girlfriend.

Some days, karma IS a bitch. This time, nobody else died except the dumbass.

You have to feel for the engineers who drive trains - they say if you do it for more than ten years, you have to deal with at least one person stepping right in front of you - and there's nothing you can do.

Comments

[readwrite.livejournal.com]

A friend who used to work for the AAA gave me a great 15-min. traffic-safety video, "Dangerous Crossings," with a good bit of footage of people trying to beat trains, and losing. One of them is a semi, and it, like all the other vehicles, gets totally creamed. As I learned in the video, a train takes a long time to stop. Even if the engineer puts the brakes on full and throws the throttle into full reverse, he can't come close to stopping if a car suddenly appears in front off the train. People think it's like another car, which might actually be able to stop or at least slow down if you suddenly pull in front of it, but it's not.

[neintales.livejournal.com]

The problem, of course, is that like with all other gruesome safety videos watched during Driver's Ed., a large percentage of people decide things were either faked or, even moire commonly "That'd never happen to ME".

Or so I go by my driver's education class, where we were shown videos like that and nine out of ten other kids in the class laughed it all off.

[djdig.livejournal.com]

My drivers ed class was the same way.

I paid attention but tried not be be scared to the point that it would make me drive slow to the point of dangerous.

Well, the one thing that didn't scare me was the video on Mac trucks. I figured as long as I stayed where they could see me, I'd be fine.

I start freaking out to this day when I'm near a Mac truck on the road because my 1st accident ever was with one. The driver was from another state, got lost, and wound up on a road with such a sharp turn that even regular trucks have trouble making it. My car was on the other side of the curve and the trailer totaled it. Luckily, at 17, I had the sense to jump out through the car and out the passenger side or I would be dead. An ambulance saw the accident and sped over. They were shocked I survived and wasn't that hurt.