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

Fri Jul 23 01:26:10 UTC 2010

Never tried it, but I've heard it's true.

Debbie

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "michael townsend" <mrtownsend at optonline.net>
To: "'Discussion of new quiet cars and pedestrian safety'" 
<quietcars at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 22, 2010 2:40 PM
Subject: Re: [Quietcars] Quieter trains a risk to walkers, USA 
Today,04/05/10

> Did you ever put your ear to the tracks to see how far away you could hear
> the train?  Interesting experiment.  You can hear things for miles and
> miles.
>
> Don't try this at home, okay?
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: quietcars-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:quietcars-bounces at nfbnet.org] 
> On
> Behalf Of Deborah Kent Stein
> Sent: Thursday, July 22, 2010 3:06 PM
> To: Discussion of new quiet cars and pedestrian safety
> Subject: Re: [Quietcars] Quieter trains a risk to walkers, USA Today,
> 04/05/10
>
>
>
> 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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