Surveillance cam catches deadly car collison with train

LiveLeak.com ^ | Septeber 12, 2007

[lowbridge]

Sep 12, 2007 Chicago, Ill. A Metra train and car collided on the South Side has now resulted in the death of the car’s driver. And it was all caught on surveillance video.

It happened on the South Side at 75th and Exchange, just blocks from Lake Michigan. The video tape shows that both gates did go down ahead of the train crossing. Seconds later, a car is traveling southbound and hen makes a left turn, trying to head east but driving right into the path of the northbound Metra train.

After the devastating collision the car is show in the video finally stopping in the northeast corner of the intersection. Both the driver and his passenger were badly hurt.

The train's engineer could do nothing to avoid the collision. From the time that car entered that crossing, the engineer would have had no time to stop that train.

Inspection on the site shows even when the gates are down, there is a gap between them, leaving plenty of room for a driver in the southbound lane of Exchange, to easily make a left turn across the tracks.

A resident says he frequently sees people in cars and on foot, trying to beat the trains.

"People walk in front of the train,” he said. “Some people drove in front of it. A lady was hit right here. She just walked in front of the train, not paying attention. I guess they don't think the train is moving as fast as it is."

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=28d_1189680188

[lowbridge]

Here is an article on the incident (the car driver was 89 years old):

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/552957,metra091207.article

[metmom]

Too old for Darwin Award even though his actions clearly qualify.

[NCC-1701]

What gets me is how the engineer got the train stopped so fast. Must have laid on the brakes. My father worked for the Illinois Central RR and saw his share of this type of accident. He constantly drilled into us to NEVER try and beat a train. YOU WILL ALWAYS LOSE.

[Caramelgal]

What gets me is how the engineer got the train stopped so fast.

That is amazing.

What’s also amazing is the pedestrian who was standing on the corner. She (I think it was a woman) looks like she’s going to cross then obviously sees the train coming and backs up and then seeing the car turning to cross she instinctively starts running in the opposite direction. The car and what appears to be a light post lands just where she had been standing seconds earlier.

I’ve heard people use the metaphor: “I could see that train wreck coming”. She really did.