Passenger Trains > KC Streetcar Oops

Today's Kansas City Star is reporting the first car/streetcar accident. Conflicting reports are that a automobile may have run a red light...streetcars are not even 2 weeks old in actual service....they only have 4 cars for the 2.5 mile route....nice!

Posted from Android

Marty Harrison
Knob Noster, MO

The streetcar video showed it had a green signal and based on where it was hit on the side, it would have been green for several seconds before it was hit.  The driver on the cross street also claims they had a green signal.  

He did have a green signal, at the last signal he looked between texts.


SDGreg Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The streetcar video showed it had a green signal
> and based on where it was hit on the side, it
> would have been green for several seconds before
> it was hit.  The driver on the cross street also
> claims they had a green signal.  

Posted from Android

SP4360 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> He did have a green signal, at the last signal he
> looked between texts.
>

As one of the commenters to the story noted, when the streetcar has a green signal, you can see the faint red of the signal for the cross auto traffic.  So I agree with you on the distracted driving.  In looking at Google street view, the pavement for the cross street appeared to be fairly new concrete with a decent amount of texture.  So even with the rain, traction for slowing shouldn't have been an issue unless at highway speeds and/or if the car's tires didn't have enough tread.  I'd guess excessive speed was an issue in addition to distracted driving.