Posted on 05/11/2005 7:17:41 AM PDT by weegee
A pickup driver was killed in downtown Houston late Tuesday when his vehicle was broadsided by a Metro light rail train, the first fatality on the rail line since it opened to the public in January 2004.
The accident happened shortly before 10:30 p.m. on southbound Main at Jefferson. The driver, who was killed on impact, was believed to be a man in his 30s. He was the only person in the Dodge pickup truck, police said.
Veda Flores was following the pickup truck when she said the driver drove through a red light and into the path of the oncoming train.
"We stopped at the light but he kept going," she said. "It was just like slow motion."
Visibly shaken after witnessing the fatal accident, Flores said it was clear the driver was at fault.
"There was no way the train could stop," she said. "He (the train operator) didn't have time."
The front of the train ripped through the driver's side door and pushed the pickup about 50 feet along the tracks.
"The impact is right on the driver's door, which is kind of a weak part of the vehicle," said Sgt. G.T. Hall, with the Houston Police Department accident division.
The pickup truck came to a rest against the Downtown Transit Center stop at Main and Jefferson.
Police said four passengers on the train were taken to area hospitals with minor injuries. Eight other riders were not injured.
Accident investigators confirmed that the train operator — who wasn't injured — likely would not be found at fault because the victim ran a red light and may have been speeding.
" We're very confident that the fault lies with the deceased," Sgt. Hall said.
Transit agency technicians were at the scene to remove a recording device — similiar to a black box in an airliner — which investigators hope may offer clues in the investigation, such as the speed of the train at the time.
Metro officials said they also would be conducting an investigation into Tuesday's fatal accident.
"We're going to have to take a hard look at it and see if there's anything at all we can do to improve safety," said Metro spokesman George Smalley.
Since MetroRail began taking passengers it has been involved in more than 74 accidents, including at least four in which pedestrians were struck by trains.
The 7.5-mile rail line holds the record for the number of accidents in a year among light rail systems in the United States — 63, set during its first year of operation.
The Metropolitan Transit Authority and police have blamed all but one of the accidents on pedestrians getting too close to the tracks and motorists attempting illegal turns across the tracks or running red lights.
Critics blame the record number of accidents on the system's at-grade rail design, with some nicknaming the $324 million MetroRail "The Danger Train." Questions also have been raised about confusing signage and traffic lights along the rail line. Additionally, MetroRail tracks share the left-turn lanes with motorists in the Texas Medical Center area.
In the first quarter of this year, Metro reported 13 rail-automobile collisions, half the number during the first quarter of 2004.
Metro considers an incident a reportable accident if it results in at least one injury or property damage in excess of $1,000.
The rail line carries about 32,000 riders a day as it runs from the University of Houston-Downtown to just south of the Loop 610, and back.
The train has a top speed of 40 mph, but an average speed of 15.5 mph, according to Metro.
Metro officials expect to resume full operation of the light rail by rush hour today.
Everybody in Houston is from someplace else.
>If "Houstonians" don't use rail, then why didn't Metrorail
>serve the visitors of Houston instead?
>Metro opposed the smarter line that went from
>Intercontiental/Bush Airport into a triangle of the
>Galleria, Medical Center, and downtown.
>Can't offer any solutions in this town that keep visitors
>out of cars (especially now that the city is dependent on
>their higher rental car taxes, roughly 28%, for the
>financing of the staduiums).
Personally I would love to see this- I already pay for parking in the med center- I could just park there and take it up to IAH. I believe one of the proposed expansions moves it closer to IAH, but ultimately just closer doesn't count. If the city is in fact opposing expansion to the airports on the basis of revenue than I have to say that is a short sighted approach to a long term problem.
>Another sign that this is a yuppie shuttle...
>The city is trying to force Greyhound to move their bus
>terminal off of West Gray and Main St. Not because it gets
>too much or too little traffic, but because it
>is "unsightly" to the new residents in the area. Look for
>the city to pick up the tab on the new terminal if they
>move.
>The downtown establishment is about lining their pockets,
>not improving Houston.
Well I am in favor of the downtown insofar as it is a comparitively high density area that is in some areas mixed use. I think Houston needs more of them. I don't live in the downtown myself.
Light Rail = Heavy Rip Off.
Democrats loooooove light rail.
Most Houston driver have all the survival instincts of a manically depressed lemming.
That's one of the big reasons the voters killed high speed rail here in Florida back in 2004. When Disney demanded that part of the Orlando system run from Orlando International Airport to the gates of their theme parks, instead of going toward downtown, and when Disney got that concession, it helped show what the thing was really going to be. Nothing more than a taxpayer-subsidized trolley at the service of South Florida liberals who wanted to take their grandkids to Disney World and not have to rub elbows with us grubby unwashed hicks along the highways leading there.
As a Houstonian, I can promise you the debate over the Metro still lives on today. The initial cost was astounding, and every time an accident occurs involving the Metro (which I believe now is roughly fifty), the repair costs are in the millions. People do ride it, but I have never seen it even close to being full. One problem is that the signs/street markers/etc. directing traffic in the area of the Metro are hard to see. The other problem is that the Metro is extremely quiet. If you are in a car at a light, or even on foot next to the tracks, you wouldn't know it was coming unless you looked in that direction.
Am I reading this correctly? ONLY 12 PASSENGERS ON THE WHOLE TRAIN?
Why is this system even running if no one uses it?
Like they say, if you can't dodge it, ram it!
If you don't speed up when the light turns yellow, you're likely to be hit from behind.
What was a train doing on a city street??? Oh yeah, they planned it this way. what was I thinking.
The trains are only two cars long, so the total capacity per train is 500.
I try to avoid downtown as much as possible, so I've only seen the train perhaps five times.
Each time it was completely empty except for the driver.
Undoubtedly because it would be way cheaper than the two alternatives. There probably are a lot of reasons why this system can be criticized, but being surface grade is not a very compelling one. We have a rail system that is at street level for long stretches, in Cleveland, and I can't tell you the last time there was a traffic accident like this. It's been years and years.
I think when Houstonians get over it and accept reality such as it is, and decide to stop fighting it, this will cease to be a problem there also.
In Boston, for example, the trains have to obey traffic lights like everybody else.
What makes you think it is just locals hitting it?
It is a bad design.
Per mile, it has among the highest accident record.
It should never have removed lanes from traffic. It should never have been given priority in all traffic situations (i.e. permitted to run lights).
Do you realize that some areas have the left turn lane ON TOP OF the tracks and that the train operators will blow their horns (where the cars are legally permitted to be) to force them to run into on coming traffic to make a turn?
I have seen the video shot from inside a rail car.
B-O-O-N-D-O-G-G-L-E.
Cleveland was taken by some of the same insiders bribing officials for city contracts. You may want to wake up to reality.
You're right.
$400,000,000 of taxpayer money for a six mile stretch of toy train between the Astrodome and Drayton McClane's other sports venue is a small price to pay for shuttling a couple of dozen doctors and nurses a day from their downtown lofts to the medical center so they don't have to pay for parking.
Why on earth would I possibly think otherwise?
It's ridiculous to believe that the toy train should have at least been built to actually alleviate congestion by bringing people into and out of downtown from remote venues rather than just shuttling them from one point downtown to another, especially if it serves the commercial needs of the city's richest, most privileged denizen.
looks like it to me--no "de" in the English language.
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