Another Caltrain death
A 13-year-old was killed on Tuesday, which is the 7th Caltrain death so far this year (3 suicides, 4 accidents). I found an article on SFGate discussing the different ways other train systems prevent deaths on their tracks. Fencing does not seem like a viable options, and I wonder how much an enforcement program would really prevent this. One thing the article did not mention was the death statistics for the other railroads mentioned or any sort of national statistics. I found a PDF of stats for 2004 on the Federal Railroad Administration site, but can’t tell how out of line (if at all) the Caltrain data is with this.
April 23rd, 2006 at 7:41 pm
About ev ery 6-12 months somebody commits suicide on the railroad tracks near my home. The track goes all through Oshkosh, yet they seem to like the area just behind our apartment. We’re far enough away that we don’t see the end results, but we do hear when the train blows it’s whistle like crazy trying to get the suicidal person to move….you hear the blasts, think about it, then read the paper in a day or two and get the full story. Sad, really.