Passenger Trains > Metra vs. Box Truck Postscript

After deboarding my Metra this evening, I noticed a small makeshift memorial at the crossing. Photo coming in a minute

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/16/22 19:06 by kevink.

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Also, sometime last Friday or Saturday, asphalt wedges were placed to smooth out what originally had been a 2-3" vertical step between the partially resurfaced pavement and the existing pavement surfaces. There was a noticeable improvement in traffic flow over the crossing. 
 

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kevink Wrote:
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> Also, sometime last Friday or Saturday, asphalt
> wedges were placed to smooth out what originally
> had been a 2-3" vertical step between the
> partially resurfaced pavement and the existing
> pavement surfaces. There was a noticeable
> improvement in traffic flow over the crossing. 
>  

The timing of that change will probably prove to be interesting in court.

TAW

Under the laws of most, if not all, states, subsequent improvements are not admissible evidence.  The courts do not want to discourage defendents from making improvements that could save lives or prevent injuries.  

In a parallel and rather unusual example from the late 1970s, Phil Anschutz (who later got even richer from owning the DRGW/SP and selling it for a few billion) sued UP, contending--among many other things--that UP had failed to reserve oil and gas in land-grant sales where the mineral reservation was of "all coal and other minerals."  He was not allowed to introduce evidence that UP had improved the reservation to "all coal, oil and other minerals" in about 1901.  

I am not seeing a sharp 2-3 inch difference in pavement. I am seeing the front wheels of the truck have cleared whatever "bump" there was on the south side the tracks. I do not believe the "bump" was the reason why the truck could not move forward after the traffic ahead of it moved away. (I can see shadows on the edge of the crossing where there is no pavement so I would expect a similar shadow across the road if there was a sharp bump.) Unfortunately there is not much left of the truck to find a mechanical problem as to why it did not move.

Today's lesson: Do not enter a railroad crossing until there is room to leave the railroad crossing.

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This is a photo of the crossing the evening after the collision looking on the direction the truck was traveling.  Someone was nice enough to spray paint the  bump (see the cropped version). 

I drive over the crossing twice daily and had for the approximately 2 week period that the bump existed. Not saying it was the cause but it definitely caused drivers to slow way down while crossing the tracks. 

I'll wait for the NTSB report before speculating further. 


 

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Thank you for the better angle (although that red may be from the crossing lights - it still makes the "sharp" bump visible).

If we were talking about a small car stopping for the bump (both front and back wheels) because someone didn't trust their suspension or tires I'd agree that bump could be a problem. But that size bump was not large enough to stop the front wheels of the truck from getting on the track (the wheels actually crossed the bump before the incident) and would not have stopped the truck from rolling forward until the rear wheels reached the bump. For a truck that size, such a bump is just a small linear pothole.

Hopefully the NTSB measured the bump and can put all of the conspiracy theories to rest. Otherwise we'll have decades of post NTSB report speculation of what really caused the accident.

Also, looks like if the driver had put it in neutral, the slope of the road would have been enough to let the truck drift backwards.
Maybe the dirver didn't want to back into another car behind him, but that definitely would have been a better alternative to what transpired.
I haven't seen any news on who the driver was, or the name of the company that owned the truck.