Fools who race through railway crossings

All of us have seen many motorists on the road who are in our opinions, the dumbest people on Earth. They tailgate at high speeds and cut in front of you without signaling. But aside from these kinds of drivers, there are really stupid drivers who by some freak of nature, manage to stay alive despite their stupidity. I am speaking of those twits who pass on a hill or on a curve. But the real height of stupidity is when these twits try to cross a railway crossing when the signal light is on, warning them of an approaching train. It’s these twits that I am now going to tell you about. These acts of stupidity occurred in the last four years.

May 9, 2003 – Siófok, Hungary: A German tourist bus disregards the crossing signal. A fast train from Budapest to Nagykanizsa strikes and splits the bus. 33 tourists are killed.

July 7, 2003 – Between Evesham and Pershore, Worcestershire, England, United Kingdom, a First Great Western train collides with a minibus on a level crossing, killing 3 people in the minibus.
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October 14, 2003 – at Yingge ,Taipei County ,Taiwan, a bus carrying students on a field trip collides with a south bound train killing 4 and injuring 42.

April 16, 2004 Temelli, Turkey: An overnight Izmir to Ankara express hits a truck in Temelli, near Ankara, as it crossed a level-crossing. 7 to 10 children were killed and 2 to 5 more wounded
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September 10, 2004 – Nosaby, near Kristianstad, Skåne, Sweden: A heavy truck is caught between the barriers at a level crossing, and is hit by a passenger train. Two aboard the train are killed, 47 are injured. The truck driver was later found to be guilty of not attempting to move the vehicle away from the level crossing, and was sentenced to 14 months' imprisonment.
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November 10, 2005 – Ankara, Turkey: 37 die when an express train hits a truck on a crossing near Ankara and is derailed.

The Nagpur level crossing disaster was an accident that occurred on February, 3, 2005, when a crowded trailer being towed by a tractor was hit by a train near the village of Kanan, 20 km from Nagpur in Maharashtra, India. The accident happened on an isolated, unmanned level crossing, when a wedding party of 70 people was being transported to the ceremony on a trailer being towed by a tractor. The crossing had no attendant or barriers. A locomotive struck the trailer and stopped just after the crossing, the crumpled trailer still underneath it, and passengers provided what assistance they could until emergency services arrived. 55 people died in the crash or in the days following, and the surviving members of the party were all critically injured. The dead included at least 30 women and 10 children. No train passengers suffered more than minor injuries or shock.

On April 27, 2005, at Polgahawela in Sri Lanka a serious bus accident occurred on a level crossing. The bus was a local one to Alawwa, reportedly carrying over 90 people through the town of Polgahawela, which is 80 km north-east of Colombo. At 8:30AM or 8:45AM local time (UTC+6 hours) the bus ran through the signals and barriers at a level crossing without checking first, and was struck by an express train from Colombo to Kandy. H. A. Sirisena, the train's driver, was quoted as saying "The signal was green and the level-crossing gates were closed, then I saw the bus trying to cross and the next thing I know, the engine was hitting the rear of the bus." It is thought that the bus was participating in a race with another local bus, the winner being the first to cross the level crossing. It is believed the driver did not notice the train in his eagerness to win. The driver, who miraculously survived with only a broken ankle, initially refused to speak about the accident to investigators. The bus was torn to pieces and the wreckage caught fire, killing many of the badly injured people strewn on the tracks in front of the train, which managed to stop shortly after striking the bus. It is feared that more than 55 people were killed in the disaster, which also injured all the remaining bus passengers. None of the train's passengers or crew were injured in the accident. The barriers on the crossing only covered the lane on oncoming traffic, allowing the bus to drive through on the wrong side of the road with visibility obscured further due to vegetation in area. The Sri Lankan government promised to prevent races by private bus companies, who compete for customers by advertising fast journeys, often violating traffic laws to do so.

November 23, 2005 at 6.30 am, local time, a train hit a truck on a level crossing between Tarsus and Mersin. 9 died and 18 were injured

February 16, 2006 – Serres, Greece: An inter-city train strikes a truck at a grade crossing near Serres and derails. A passenger and the truck driver are killed, and twenty others on board the train are injured.

April 28, 2006 Victoria, Australia: A V/Line VLocity high-speed train is derailed when struck by an 18 wheeler truck, killing two and injuring 28 on the Ballarat to Ararat line.

June 12, 2006 – Netanya, Israel: A passenger train from Tel Aviv to Haifa derails after colliding with a truck on a level crossing, killing five and injuring more than 100.

November 13, 2006 South Africa - A Metrorail train smashes into a truck carrying farm workers at a level crossing near Somerset West, killing 27 people.

January 4, 2007 – Hatay Province, Turkey: A freight train smashes into a truck carrying farm workers at a railroad crossing in Hatay Province, Turkey, killing seven and injuring 19.
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April 16, 2007 – A passenger train crashes into a minibus carrying local council officials at an unmanned rail crossing in southern India, killing 11 people and injuring another 12 in the vehicle. Seven of the injured were hospitalized in serious condition. The vehicle was carrying a total of 23 people.

June 5, 2007 – A semi trailer collided with a Melbourne-bound passenger train 6 kilometers north of Kerang at the Murray Valley Highway crossing Victoria, killing at least 11 passengers and injuring several more.

Well, there you have it. 270 were killed because of the stupidity of 17 drivers.

I remember reading about a woman in Ontario, Canada who stopped at an unmarked train crossing to let a passenger train pass by. Just as the last of the train was passing by her, she gunned her engine and flew across the tracks. She was immediately struck by the engine of a freight train on the second track coming from the opposite direction. She died of course.

The moral of this last viginette is, ‘train time is all the time.’ It would appear that stupidity is also all of the time.