More Grade Crossing Tragedies

Once again, we get word of two incidents in which people have been killed by Amtrak trains. The truth is, there is a fatality at a railroad grade crossing almost every day. Senseless … stupid … and all the more tragic because every damn one is unnecessary and avoidable.

Yesterday in North Carolina, for example, a young woman drove around the gates, onto the tracks, and into the path of an Amtrak train. She was killed. So was her 5-year-old son. She was talking on her cell phone at the time.

Also yesterday, near Orlando, Florida, a young man was killed when he apparently walked into the path of another Amtrak train. The news story doesn’t say so, but this could very likely be a suicide … one of many like this that occur every year.

Off subject, and admittedly trivial in comparison to this tragedy, the news report out of Orlando repeatedly referred to this incident as a “collision,” a terrible misuse of the word. A collision is contact between two bodies when each exerts a force on the other … doesn’t matter if the bodies are atomic particles or a freight train hitting a cement truck. But, clearly, a speeding train striking a single human being is not a collision.

Who writes this stuff, anyway!