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

Thu Jul 22 19:05:47 UTC 2010

It's troubling when people are killed needlessly.  I completely concur that 
pedestrians, blind and sighted, need to be alert to their surroundings, and 
we must encourage that and reinforce it as much as possible.  As long as 
trains make themselves heard in places where they legitimately come into 
proximity with pedestrians, then their quiet operation elsewhere shouldn't 
be a problem.  However, human nature is what it is.  I walked along many 
railroad tracks in my young and follish days, totally counting on the notion 
that I would hear the train in plenty of time.  Now people need to be taught 
that this is no longer the case.

Debbie

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "michael townsend" <mrtownsend at optonline.net>
To: "'Discussion of new quiet cars and pedestrian safety'" 
<quietcars at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2010 6:30 PM
Subject: Re: [Quietcars] Quieter trains a risk to walkers, USA 
Today,04/05/10

> How is this troublesome?  Is it because some of the blame for quiet car
> responsibility is pushed to the pedestrian, or that the higher stats of
> teenaged accidents or deaths, whether they be caused by wearing music
> devices or suicide, may blemish some of the great work that the ACB and 
> NFB
> have been doing regarding such legislation?  I think not, Deb, as our work
> should have nothing to do with this train reporting, except that it points
> out that people don't tend to pay as much attention as they ought to or 
> that
> they aren't as familiar with pedestrian rules of the road as they pertain 
> to
> the quieter vehicles, be they bus, train, car or truck.
>
> I think that this is exactly the kind of piece we need to alert those who
> travel in towns and cities where subways are readily available, and that
> quieter buses and trucks in towns with green intentions abound, and in
> places which are becoming more and more familiar in which hybrids are part
> of the landscape.
>
> I think that, coupled with this quieter environment, we are jostled about 
> by
> persons who aren't paying attention to their daily travels as well, 
> because
> they're too busy texting, talking on the phones, using GPS devices, etc., 
> or
> just chatting away.  It would be incumbent upon us to not fall into those
> bad habits so that we can't be accused of the same.  Working a guide, 
> while
> on the cellular phone, and listening to a GPS device may be doable, but at 
> a
> great risk.  And, I would imagine that utilizing a cane under these
> circumstances might be even more involved.
>
> We had a comment about "hillbillies" liking their trucks and cars loud, 
> last
> week during the convention season.  Now, it's time that we awaken 
> ourselves
> with articles such as this to remind ourselves that we need to get back to
> tracking the business at hand now that the convention season is pretty 
> well
> put to bed, at least on a national level; and that we have to work
> tirelessly to import our ideas to the state and local levels of our
> particular blindness organizations, be they guide dog schools, mobility
> training counselors, or state agencies from which we receive help.  , in
> order to make this quieter car or, more importantly, quieter vehicle issue 
> a
> part of the everyday discussion.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: quietcars-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:quietcars-bounces at nfbnet.org] 
> On
> Behalf Of Deborah Kent Stein
> Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2010 3:46 PM
> To: Discussion of new quiet cars and pedestrian safety
> 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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