I think the article identified the truck plates as being from Louisianna. It is likely that this was a contractor. It is also possible that the driver was a migrant who may not have known what to do at a crossing. That part of the world moves A LOT of potatos and contractors come in from all over the place. Most employ seasonal migrant labor. I will be interested to see what the follow up on this is. At the very least the tourist railroad had better look into guarding those crossings. John
Therein could be a problem. Most such operations are under funded. So they'd need help to come up with a bunch of money. If you want to know how screwed up drivers can be: Amongst many things I have done- I spent a few years volunteering at a tourist operation. One day, we were doing some track maintenance, just a few feet off a busy road. Standing clear, we were watching, as our train approached. When a log truck drove right through lowered gates. After the police caught up with him, despite the fact there were 10-12 on scene witnesses, he was irate. I mean irate! And swore there was no gate. No signals flashing. Etc. Except for the broken pieces, mark on front of his truck, and..... He fought the ticket. (Lost.) And refused to pay damages. Until taken to court, and forced to make restitution. So, it's an truly weird world out there..... mg: Boxcab E50
Don't think the railroads, tourist or otherwise should do a d****d thing beyond what they currently do! The same yahoo who ignores crossbucks, flashing red lights, horns, and those two or more rails is an lot less likely to pay attention to you or I in our cars. Just Darwinian "natural selection" in action.
It used to be enough this way. For such a well educated society, amazingly, a lot of people seem to prove otherwise by such actions. Somewhere, we lost sight of personal responsibility for our actions. :sad: Boxcab E50
An overly-litigious society, combined with the rise of the nanny state, gives us all the impetus we need to sue McDonalds if we spill their Lava Java on ourselves, to demand that braille be provided at drive-up ATMs, and to force railroads to put up flaming walls of warning to keep us from being creamed by their locomotives when we are chatting on our cell phones and/or listening to music in a "sound-insulated" vehicle. Yet we still cry foul. The familiarity masks the danger. It's my car with my cup holder, my cell phone, my tunes, and my heated seats. Why would I think I would need to exercise care and caution? So we put big ol' warning signs on the inside to warn you of instant death if you put a child in the front seat with an airbag. We put warning labels all over the coffee cups to warn you that it's hot. We put little stickers in red on everything from a toaster to a computer keyboard warning us of everything from a really bad hangnail to spontaneous human combustion. WARNING! DANGER! CAUTION! ACHTUNG! ENOUGH! With all the warning stickers, did anyone ever consider that we might just get used to them and ignore them? Maybe we should make the crossbucks glow in the dark...or shoot off flares at approaching vehicles? Maybe install "positive truck control" to shut down the motor of a vehicle when it's approaching a crossing that's active? We can't trust humans to actually think anymore.
