Stories and videos of people not seeing things that were ‘there’ are all over the place. To wit, the video where the man in a gorilla suit walked right across a basketball game while people were concentrating on how many times the ball got passed is one example.
And it happens while driving as well - not the ‘I didn’t see the gorilla’ part, of course, but being so focused on one task (like fiddling with the radio or heater - c’mon, you’ve all had THAT happen) that you can’t really remember the last minute or more of the road.
Chances are, the driver DID get distracted by something. Couple that with crossing a particular set of railroad tracks every day for years and never encountering a train, and you have the recipe for precisely what happened in Mississippi.
“Couple that with crossing a particular set of railroad tracks every day for years and never encountering a train...”
As kids we are all taught about the danger of the highways and streets, and that is reinforced all the time as another car comes down the road. “CAR!!!” as it interups shooting hoops.
Railway tracks are almost always empty, and most people are rarely near tracks so they really don’t think much of them. We had some old tracks in town that had been shut down for years. Until somebody got a dinner train going. It went real slow - but I bet that took folks a bit of getting used to.