Car Hits Ambulance Carrying METRORail Victim

News2Houston ^ | March 17, 2004 | Staff

[PeaceBeWithYou]

One wonders if this would have made the news if the ambulance hadn't been hit.

[dfwgator]

At least we know it wasn't an SUV that hit the ambulance, if it were the headline would have been "SUV hits Ambulance."

[Guvmint_Cheese]

Yeah, it would. It would be buried in the "Area Briefs" in the Houston Chronicle Metro section. They've started burying rail crash stories to protect the Choo-Choo.

[PeaceBeWithYou]

METRORail ping.

Perhaps this is what you heard, Bobbyd.

[judgeandjury]

A witness told officials that the woman who collided with the ambulance was trying to run a red light.

Stupid person.

METRO officials told News2Houston the pedestrian struck by the light-rail train reportedly stepped in front of the train illegally.

Stupid person.

[JTG]

Just Damn?

[Flyer]

*Tales From The Rail PING!*

As always, a FReep mail will get you on or off this Houston and Texas topics ping list.

[JTG]

Just damn ping? Maybe?

[Howie66]

But, by golly, Houston is going to be a "World Class City" because of this Hooterville Trolley! If ya don't believe it, just ask those people over at the Houston Comical and METRO!

The number of cars on the road will be reduced, if not for any other reason, than by attrition.

[Dog Gone]

This is number 26. The last real report said we were on pace for 44 for the year, the worst record in light rail startup in US history.

The pace has obviously quickened. Light rail only covers 7.5 miles in Houston today. The carnage figures in 20 years should be really impressive.

[backhoe]

[Rocky]

Help me refresh my memory here... Didn't Tom DeLay oppose the building of this train? Seems to me he took a lot of heat from the local media over that.

[Ready4Freddy]

Maybe all the really stoopid people will be hit this year, then the accidents will become less frequent. Stunning what idiots Houstonians are, what? Most ppl know to stay outta the way of a train......

[Ready4Freddy]

Prevented any Federal funding of it, tho it's not in his district.

[freekitty]

That train is cursed. There have been so many accidents here in Houston involving it.

[freekitty]

Houstonians are not stupid. It's the train. It wasn't planned very well. Remember Ex Mayor Brown just had to have it for the Super Bowl.

[Dog Gone]

Maybe all the really stoopid people will be hit this year, then the accidents will become less frequent.

Not likely. The current segment is in the Medical Center of Houston, a magnet to patients seeking treatment from around the world, not just America. It was a dangerous place to drive for native Houstonians before the train was put down in the middle of the street.

People are constantly looking for addresses, buildings, and parking garages. Add unfamiliar warning lights, a train that runs silently and unexpectedly, and there's not much optimism that the accident rate will drop a whole lot in future years.

[Action-America]

The last real report said we were on pace for 44 for the year, the worst record in light rail startup in US history.

I don't know where you got that, but it's way off. In fact, I just went through the list of Wham-Bam-Tram crashes and at no time since the second public operation accident on 1/13, has the accident rate been that low. On 1/13, the rate was one crash every 6.5 days or 56 crashes per year and it rapidly increased after that (I include pedestrian accidents only when there is an injury reported).

Today, we are on track for 98.3 crashes in the first year.

Do the math. It has been 78 days and there have been 21 crashes or pedestrian injury accidents since 1/1/4.

78 days / 21 crashes = a crash every 3.71 days

365 days per year / 3.71 days = 98.3 crashes projected in a year.

Furthermore, according to a KHOU report, the Wham-Bam-Tram has already had more crashes in the first two months of operation than any rail system in any other city had in the first year of operation. Not only that, but the Wham-Bam-Tram route is much shorter than the routes of any of those other trains.

The Wham-Bam-Tram is crashing at a rate at least six times greater than any other train system in any other city ever did. You would think that someone at Metro would realize that something is seriously flawed in the design of the Wham-Bam-Tram.

On the other hand, I hear that the engineers and city planners who came up with the design have applied to the US Attorney's Office for inclusion in the Witness Protection Program.  8^)

 

[johnb838]

Don't forget the fact that the train shares a lane with left turners.

[Dog Gone]

I know it's way off, but that's what I recall the Houston Chronicle finally admitting in their first serious story about the train crashes.

It was about a month ago, when the count was in the teens.