Articles Posted in Train Accidents

The deadly collision between an Amtrak train and a sport utility vehicle at a railroad crossing in East Oakland on Sunday night that resulted in the death of the driver of the SUV is still under investigation. However, San Francisco train accident attorney Gregory J. Brod would point out that what we do know about the unsettling incident is that it has added yet another figure to the troubling statistical trend for 2014 concerning fatalities and injuries at railroad crossings.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, the fatal collision occurred at about 10:05 p.m. Sunday when an unidentified 48-year-old Oakley man drove his Acura MDX around a barrier onto the tracks at 50th Avenue and San Leandro Street in Oakland and a northbound Amtrak Coast Starlight struck the SUV, killing the motorist. The train, whose point of origin was Los Angeles, was on its way to Seattle carrying 200 passengers and crew and came to a stop at High and San Leandro streets after slamming into the SUV. The Alameda County Coroner’s Office is investigating the incident as an apparent suicide; the motorist was pronounced dead at the scene, while no one aboard the train was injured.

Whether or not officials determine that the deadly incident on Sunday was a suicide this much is clear: when there is a collision between a train and a motor vehicle, damage and the potential for injury or death will fall lopsidedly on the later. Indeed, according to the train safety advocacy group Operation Lifesaver, the force of a 30-car freight train hitting a motor vehicle is equivalent to that of the same motor vehicle striking a aluminum soda can – a decidedly no-contest equation. And a motorist is 20 times more likely to die in a collision involving a train than in a crash involving another motor vehicle.

The most recent statistics from the Federal Railroad Office of Safety Analysis detail a less-than-reassuring picture of railroad crossing accidents involving trains and motor vehicles in the United States, including the following:

• There were 970 such incidents in 2011, 970 in 2012, 1,022 in 2013 and 1,130 from January through June 2014, which represents a 16.5 percent increase from 2011 to this year.
• There were 135 fatalities in 2011, 116 in 2012, 127 in 2013 and 137 from January through June 2014, which represents a 1.9 percent increase from 2011 to this year.
• There were 517 injuries in 2011, 432 in 2012, 482 in 2013 and 395 from January through June 2014, which represents a 23.6 percent decrease from 2011 to this year.

The picture for pedestrians or so-called trespassers who cross railroad tracks has been even more grim during the 2011-14 period, as there were 188 fatalities in 2011, 195 in 2012, 208 in 2013 and 262 from January through June 2014, an increase of 39.4 percent. With respect to injuries due to collisions between trains and pedestrians, there were 168 in 2011, 220 in 2012, 202 in 2013 and 197 from January through June 2014, an increase of 17.3 percent. Not surprisingly, the odds are stacked even more heavily against pedestrians than motor vehicles when they are in the path of a moving train.
Continue Reading ›

A growing and troubling problem claimed another life Monday evening in San Leandro, where an 18-year-old woman was struck and killed by a train while she was walking across railroad tracks. The victim, a San Leandro High School senior, did not fit the profile of the average railroad crossing fatality that the Federal Railroad Administration has described, i.e., a 38-year-old Caucasian male who is under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs, and prompts San Francisco train accident attorney Gregory J. Brod to ask what is behind the increasing number of pedestrian rail fatalities.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the victim, Britany Silva of San Leandro, was walking south along the east side of Hesperian Boulevard near Springlake Drive about 5:55 p.m. when a southbound Amtrak train appeared. Silva was wearing “earbud-style” headphones while she was talking on her cellphone when a witness yelled out to her to stay clear of looming train, according to police. Unfortunately, police said that Silva was not able to respond to the man’s warning, perhaps because she was not able to hear him, and she was struck by the train. Her body was found 50 feet from the intersection, and the train came to a stop several hundred yards after the collision.

Silva, who lived in an apartment complex next to the train tracks, was the second cellphone-related fatality of a teen on railroad tracks in the East Bay in the last few months. In March, a 14-year-old girl died in Martinez after she was struck by a freight train when attempting to retrieve the cellphone that she had dropped on the tracks.

The recent fatalities may be attributable in part to a growing phenomenon of what is known as “distracted walking,” i.e., when a pedestrian is preoccupied with something such as an electronic device and does not see or hear impending danger on a roadway or railroad track. With respect to railroads, an additional factor has been that freight traffic has been growing in the United States in recent years, particularly as a result of increased rail transportation from the nation’s booming oil and gas fields, and thus, unfortunately, there have been more opportunities for pedestrians and trains to cross paths.

Whatever the causes of pedestrian fatalities on railroad tracks in the United States the numbers have been clear and they point to an undeniably disturbing trend. According to the Federal Railroad Administration Office of Safety Analysis, the number of total deaths and injuries sustained by railroad trespassers, excluding those from highway-rail collisions, has been rising nationwide, going from 772 in 2011, to 842 in 2012 to 900 such cases in 2013. California has experienced the same pattern, with injuries and deaths increasing from 96 in 2011, to 118 in 2012 and 127 last year. Counting fatalities alone, there have been 259 railroad trespasser deaths in California from 2010 through 2013, with 76 recorded last year.
Continue Reading ›

This week saw a couple of important developments concerning safety on the rails emanating from the federal government and railroads. The initiatives, a campaign from a nonprofit backed by railroads, a trade group and the government that stresses the dangers of being near train tracks and a set of proposed rules from the Federal Railroad Administration, are welcome measures. And San Francisco train accident attorney Gregory J. Brod joins safety advocates in hoping that these steps will help stem the rising number of deaths on railroad tracks.

On Tuesday, ads began appearing on television for a campaign that has been dubbed “See Tracks? Think Train,” in which a young man is shown walking on railroad tracks while wearing headphones and not realizing that a train is approaching. According to KTVU News, the CEO of the campaign sponsor, Joyce Rose of Operation Lifesaver, which is a nonprofit focused on educating people about the hazards of railroads, believes that the uptick in deaths on the rails in 2013 may be tied to the increased use of smartphones and other electronic devices.

“We’re a distracted population,” Rose said.

Causal factors behind the rail deaths can be the subject for debate, but there is no doubt that there was an increase in fatalities from 2012 to 2013. After a period of declines in derailments and crossing accidents, the number of trespassing deaths jumped by 47, or 11 percent, to 476 last year; the number of deaths in accidents rose by nearly 8 percent to 250 last year.

The campaign is also supported by the Association of American Railroads trade group, major railroads and the FRA. Interestingly enough, the “See Tracks? Think Train” initiative comes on the heels of the tragic death late last month in Marysville, California, where a teenager died on train tracks after being hit by a train when trying to save his girlfriend.

According to the Sacramento Bee, Mateus Moore, a student at the Marysville Charter Academy for the Arts and his girlfriend, Mickayla Friend, both 16, were walking on railroad tracks on March 21 and didn’t realize that a train was fast approaching them from behind. Although the train sounded a warning horn and tried to stop it was too late; Moore died after being hit by the train but not before making the fateful decision to shove Friend away, which helped spare her from the brunt of the collision.

Property owners have a duty of care to remove or mitigate conditions that may cause harm to an individual who uses their property for legitimate purposes. And that duty extends to children who may be trespassers but are attracted out of curiosity to investigate the hazardous conditions of a property, i.e., an “attractive nuisance,” which may be grounds for a premises liability and may or may not be relevant in the Marysville case.

The FRA, which is an agency of the Department of Transportation, says that the number of injuries and deaths changes from year to year depending on factors such as construction near train tracks or stepped-up vehicle and pedestrian traffic.

On Wednesday, the FRA announced that it was issuing a proposed rule requiring two-man crews on trains carrying crude oil and setting minimum crew size standards for most freight and passenger trains. Additional FRA guidelines are expected on securing unattended freight cars, requiring railroads to verify securement of those cars for emergency responders, and mandating that locomotive cabs be locked and reversers to be removed and secured.

There have been several incidents involving the spilling of hazardous materials from trains in recent years, but one that triggered an emergency session of the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee that resulted in the government’s recommendations was the deadly derailment of an unattended freight train carrying crude oil in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, Canada, on July 6, 2013.

“Safety is our highest priority, and we are committed to taking the necessary steps to assure the safety of those who work for railroads and shippers, and the residents and communities along shipping routes,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. “The proposed rulemaking on crew size is the latest effort in our comprehensive strategy to ensure crude oil is transported as safely as possible.”
Continue Reading ›

Bay Area rail commuters have several train networks to choose from to move about the region, and Caltrain undoubtedly ranks as one of the better known systems. But the train service that runs from San Francisco through the San Mateo Peninsula and on to the San Jose area received attention in January it would rather not have, as there were two separate incidents that resulted in fatalities. With such a tragic start to 2014, our Bay Area train accident attorney Gregory J. Brod is among those people who are asking questions about train safety in our region.

And here is the most sobering thought to work with as a starting point for asking questions about rail safety: Thirteen people died in all of 2013 when they were struck by a Caltrain vehicle, making the two such deaths in January 2014, one on Monday, Jan. 20, in Santa Clara, and the other on Friday, Jan. 31 in Redwood City, such an unsettling statistic.

The first rail fatality of 2014 occurred on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday when, according to the San Jose Mercury News, a Good Samaritan named Philip Scholz died while trying to save the life of another person. Scholz, who was waiting for a train ride home while at the raised platform at the Caltrain Santa Clara station, saw another man down on the tracks. He then dropped his backpack, lay down on his belly and reached for the other individual on the tracks. Unfortunately, a commuter train rushing through the station at 50 to 70 mph did not stop and slammed into the two men at about 5:30 p.m., killing Scholz. The identity of the other man, who survived the incident, has not been released.

Surveillance footage of the incident revealed that Scholz was looking at the man on the tracks, perhaps even talking to him before he decided to attempt to pull the man to safety. However, it is still not known why the man was on the tracks in the first place, nor how he was able to survive the collision with the Caltrain.

In the second railroad tracks fatality of this year, which occurred at about 6:15 a.m. on the last day of the month, a woman was killed when she was struck by a Caltrain at the Redwood City station. As in the case of the tragedy in Santa Clara earlier in the month, the Caltrain that killed the woman was a fast-moving express train that was not scheduled to stop at the station on its way north to San Francisco. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the circumstances of the woman’s death are under investigation and her identity has not been released.
Continue Reading ›