[Quietcars] Quieter trains a risk to walkers, USA Today, 04/05/10

Wed Jul 21 23:33:30 UTC 2010

Dewey, I would say safely, without too much fear of being wrong, that our
situations may arise when we take subways and get twisted around in looking
for track locations and maybe come too close to the edge.  Although in some
cases, there are tactile strips to guard against this.  But, with a whole
bunch of folks jostling you and a lot of noise, confusion could become the
order of the day and a slip might occur.  

-----Original Message-----
From: quietcars-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:quietcars-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Dewey Bradley
Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2010 6:56 PM
To: Discussion of new quiet cars and pedestrian safety
Subject: Re: [Quietcars] Quieter trains a risk to walkers, USA Today,
04/05/10

Do we know what the percentage is with blind people verses sighted people
getting hit by trains?
Usually blind people just don't go walking down the tracks, though I've done
it my self, We are most of the time on the sidewalk where you are supposed
to be, its harder for us to take a shortcut across a field and down the
tracks and over the fences.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Deborah Kent Stein" <dkent5817 at att.net>
To: "Discussion of new quiet cars and pedestrian safety" 
<quietcars at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2010 2:46 PM
Subject: Re: [Quietcars] Quieter trains a risk to walkers, USA
Today,04/05/10

>
>
> Very troubling.  Do we want to link this to our site?  It takes our 
> concerns in a new direction, but it's certainly related to the work 
> we've been doing.
>
> Debbie
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Nightingale, Noel" <Noel.Nightingale at ed.gov>
> To: <quietcars at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2010 10:30 AM
> Subject: [Quietcars] Quieter trains a risk to walkers, USA Today, 
> 04/05/10
>
>
>>
>> Quieter trains a risk to walkers
>>
>> By Larry Copeland
>>
>> Pedestrian deaths remain steady even as fatalities from train-vehicle 
>> crashes decline
>>
>> Anna Marie Stickel, 14, missed the school bus that morning. So she 
>> took a shortcut along some railroad tracks that made her trek to 
>> school about 10 minutes; going the long, safe way around would have 
>> taken 30-40 minutes, her
>>
>> mother says.
>>
>> Listening to her iPod as she and a friend walked along the tracks in 
>> January, Anna Marie of Middle River, Md., was hit and killed by an 
>> Amtrak train.
>>
>> Anna Marie's friend, who was not listening to music, heard the train 
>> just in
>>
>> time to jump to safety, says Anna Marie's mother, Tara Stickel, 38. 
>> They are
>>
>> deadly quiet," she says of today's trains and tracks. My baby girl 
>> had no idea. I know for a fact she hadn't been told how dangerous 
>> they are. And I am just as much to blame for that. I never saw those 
>> tracks as a threat.
>>
>> Rail-safety advocates and federal authorities are trying to determine 
>> how to
>>
>> reduce fatalities involving trains and pedestrians, which far 
>> outstrip deaths in train-vehicle collisions.
>>
>> Over the past 10 years, the number of deaths involving trains and 
>> motor vehicles has dropped 42% to 248. In the same period, deaths 
>> involving pedestrians have fallen  6% to 434, the Federal Railroad 
>> Administration says. That's (incidents with pedestrians) the No. 1 
>> cause of death in the railroad industry," FRA spokesman Rob Kulat says.
>>
>> Rail-safety advocates are especially concerned about teenagers killed 
>> accidentally by trains in hangout spots on or near the tracks. We are 
>> working so hard to try to figure out a way to turn this around," says 
>> Marmie
>>
>> Edwards of Operation Lifesaver, an international rail-safety advocacy 
>> group.
>>
>> It may be that in some parts of the country, the railroad tracks are 
>> a little bit secluded," Edwards says. So (teens) think it's a place 
>> where they
>>
>> can go to just hang out without other people knowing what they're doing.
>> Sometimes, when you tell this age group this is not where you should 
>> go, that's where they're going to want to go
>>
>> A quiet danger
>>
>> Trains are a lot quieter than they used to be.
>>
>> Rails are built in longer, continuous sections of track, so the 
>> familiar "clackety-clack" of wheels on the track is gone in many 
>> places. The trains themselves are quieter. Communities across the USA 
>> have enacted "quiet zones," where operators are barred from sounding 
>> their horns during certain times of day.
>>
>> That quiet is one reason the number of pedestrians killed by trains 
>> has remained steady. Another reason: Many people wear headphones or 
>> talk on cellphones while ambling along railroad tracks.
>>
>> When you have train tracks this near high schools or middle schools 
>> and students use it as a shortcut, you really need to educate 
>> children on what's
>>
>> going on," says Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., who helped set 
>> up train-safety assemblies at Anna Marie's high school.
>>
>> People take shortcuts across the tracks. Hunters walk along them. 
>> People ride all-terrain vehicles on them and sit on them to fish.
>>
>> Many people simply fail to understand how dangerous trains are, says 
>> Richard
>>
>> Ratcliffe, executive director of Maryland Operation Lifesaver, which 
>> puts on
>>
>> safety lessons for students and others.
>>
>> We tell them the train overhangs on each side by at least 3 feet, and 
>> they can overhang by as much as 12," Ratcliffe says. We tell them 
>> they don't build trains like they did, and they're a lot quieter. We 
>> explain why walking or walking the dog or hanging out on tracks is so 
>> dangerous and why it's against the law.
>>
>> Looking at suicides
>>
>> It's unclear how many of the deaths are intentional. Kulat says the 
>> FRA does
>>
>> not track suicides but estimates that 20% to 50% of train-pedestrian 
>> deaths involve people taking their own lives. Railroads reporting a 
>> death soon will
>>
>> have to indicate whether it was a suicide.
>>
>> Of 33,000 annual suicides in the USA, 1%-2% occur on railroads. 
>> Suicide by rail is "highly lethal, and it's accessible," says Matthew 
>> Wintersteen, clinical psychologist at Philadelphia's Thomas Jefferson 
>> University and a member of the Pennsylvania Youth Suicide Prevention 
>> Initiative. If we can restrict access to lethal means, we can reduce 
>> the number of suicides.
>> The
>> problem, of course, is ... can we restrict public access to the train 
>> tracks?
>>
>> Among recent intentional teen deaths:
>>
>> *Two girls in Delaware killed themselves in February by stepping in 
>> front of
>>
>> a high-speed Amtrak train. The girls had made a suicide pact, 
>> according to police.
>>
>> *A high school freshman in Pleasanton, Calif., stepped in front of a 
>> Union Pacific train near her school in February.
>>
>> Kulat says a freight train going 60 mph takes about a mile to stop 
>> after the
>>
>> emergency brake is applied. You can't stop. You can't turn, obviously. 
>> You
>> just have to watch it happen. ... There's the trauma that train 
>> engineers go
>>
>> through (after hitting someone). They go through post-traumatic 
>> stress counseling. The one thing they talk about is that they see the 
>> people's eyes
>>
>> right before they hit them. A lot of those engineers don't return to 
>> work.
>>
>>
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