Posted on 06/20/2013 12:16:58 PM PDT by matt04
BELMONT, Mass. A woman and her two children, ages 7 and 10, narrowly escaped serious injury when a train smashed into their minivan after a GPS device led the driver onto MBTA train tracks Tuesday night.
The woman was driving southbound on Brighton Street shortly before 9 p.m. when the GPS device directed her to make a right turn which placed her vehicle directly onto railroad tracks.
Apparently the woman was unable to drive off the tracks, forcing her to flee the vehicle with her children.
Shortly thereafter, an MBTA Fitchburg bound commuter rail train carrying 70 passengers slammed into the minivan. Nobody was injured in the collision either on or off the train.
No information was given as to why the woman could not drive off the tracks nor was there a reason given as to why she couldn't see that she was driving onto them in the first place.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Moron.
Obviously a Democrat....and even more obvious will be the Lawsuit against the maker of the GPS for failure to warn the dumbass that traffic doesn’t know she’s following instructions, and paying no attention to driving.
I saw a Mexican girl pull up and stop on the RR tracks right in front of a slow moving train. Train was maybe 50 yards away.
The train hit her truck and pushed it maybe 100yds down the tracks.
She wasn’t hurt but she went absolutely nuts screaming at the trains engineer that he should have stopped the train.
And if the GPS told her to jump off a cliff...
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless
Not so hard to do.
It was night, obviously in an unfamiliar area (hence the GPS), etc. If the tracks are close to the road, your headlights might not illuminate them until you were right on them.
Similar thing happened to me once. I turned left onto an entrance ramp for the interstate. Turns out, it was split to accept traffic from both directions, with an island in between. Didn’t even see the traffic island, though, because the intersection was unlit. I ended up driving right over the island. Never saw it until I was on it.
Fortunately, I was in my high clearance 4x4, and not the wife’s low-slung European sedan...
I’ve also crossed railroad tracks in a 4x4 (not at a crossing). It can be tricky, even with four wheel drive engaged and plenty of ground clearance. A standard rail is over 6.5 inches in height, more than many common minivans on this list:
If you’re in a minivan, it would be easy to get hung up.
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