Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/02/21/new-video-of-amazon-van-sliced-in-half-by-train.html
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Still curious about how he didn’t feel the train coming-it’s pretty noticeable.
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He wasn’t parked on the tracks, he was driving.
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There was a RR crossing sign, even if there were no signals, and there was a stop sign, which he had to have ignored. I am glad he’s not dead, and that crossing probably should have a signal, since the trains are travelling at that speed there, but…you gotta stop and look both ways. Like, this is literally day 1 driver’s ed stuff. I know people get complacent, and I’ve been known to not come to a full stop at a stop sign or two, but not at a RR crossing. You can’t be too careful at a RR crossing.
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Not quickly enough, apparently.
(sorry)
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in the unlikely event that anyone else’s curiosity was peaked as to the origin of the name “Ixonia”
The town of Union was separated from the town of Watertown on February 12, 1841. Five years later, Union was further divided into two new towns. The first town became known as Concord, and as the residents could not otherwise agree on a name for the second town, the name was chosen by drawing letters at random until a name could be formed from the letters. As a result, “Ixonia” was the name given to the town on January 21, 1846, and still remains the only town with this name in the United States (wikipedia)
(Guild Navigator: We have just folded space from Ix. Many machines on Ix, new machines. Not as good as those on Richese)
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Wow, Wisconsin must have tens of thousands of towns, if they subdivide them so readily.
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This is a bad crossing/intersection.
I’ve seen reports on on similar road ways that has a high accident rate because of the angles of travel and cars support column getting in the way of your view.
Still, he should have gotten perpendicular to the tracks and made sure before proceeding. Also, add some cross arms. Baffles my mind they don’t have those every where, but I know in some low traffic areas they do not.
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He was exiting a driveway parallel to the tracks with the train coming up behind him, and you can see him looking over his shoulder as he turns, but however far he could see from that angle, it clearly wasn’t far enough. Looks like to make that manoeuvre safely, especially in a van with limited visibility, you’d have to make an awkward-ass hook turn to get yourself perpendicular enough to the tracks to see the train. Hopefully this dude’s brush with death underscores the need to be extra vigilant at shittily designed train crossings, but man, that is one shittily designed train crossing.
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The stop sign was almost perpendicular to his path of travel. Not safe.
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Yeah it does look like a really poorly designed intersection. I think the main problem is where that driveway connects to the road. I’m not sure why it runs so close to the tracks. You can see a driveway diagonally across the tracks, and it’s much further away from the tracks. It definitely needs to be redesigned. I don’t think the driver is entirely blameless here, though. There’s a really poorly designed freeway offramp not far from me, and there’s a lot of fender benders there when people realize they’re in the wrong lane and try to move over without checking their blind spot. It needs to be fixed, but when there’s an accident there, it’s still almost always because someone changes lanes at the last second without checking their blind spot.
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From the satellite photo, that’s a crop field. The driveway is likely that far to maximize the size of the field for growing.
Unless everyone always turns right out of the driveway and never crosses the tracks, a little driveway redesign would help. If Amazon had routed him with no lefts, would have been fine.
Leave the bulk of the driveway where it is to maximize field size. Add a turn near the road so the driveway goes around the far side of that utility pole away from the tracks. A curve away from the tracks and another back to the road. The crop already needs to avoid the pole and guidewire anyway, so it wouldn’t lose that much field. That would make a left towards the tracks far enough to line up correctly at the stop sign.
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If you zoom out a bit more, you see that the road he’s on is a dead end that only serves a couple of farms, so that’s why this won’t have been a priority for upgrading or redesigning the crossing.
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Eat your heart out, 11’8" bridge!
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Damn - beat me to it. The top row or so of a card is already in these comments. I think they should build a bridge!
(Also @theophrastus: piqued)
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