Car versus Train: The car never wins

It is funny the things you trip over while searching the news... I didn't think people were this stupid.

If you have passengers, it isn't just your life you are risking. Woman and infant son dead in 'tragic crash' between car and train in Frostproof, deputies says.

This woman killed her sister and her infant nephew. Because she was in a hurry, I suppose.

The sheriff's office says witnesses told deputies the warning lights were working and crossing arms were down at the train crossing. Witnesses told deputies the driver of the car drove around the crossing arms, but before it was able to clear the tracks, the train hit the car's passenger side behind the rear door.

The impact "split the car in half" and propelled the backseat about 50 feet away, the sheriff's office said. Deputies say Shala and her baby were in the backseat and were ejected.

There was a car seat, but the child was not in it, and the adults were not wearing seatbelts.

Next from Colorado. Car And RTD Train Collide On A Line In Aurora

In an update at roughly 4:40 p.m., police said the driver involved in the collision “disregarded the lowered level crossing signals as the train approached.”

The driver was seriously hurt. He is seriously lucky to be alive.

And you knew a phone would be involved somewhere. Car hit by train in Comstock Park.

A deputy on scene tells us the driver of the vehicle was looking up directions on a phone while stopped on the tracks then moved forward into the train's path.

Stopping on active tracks, and not paying attention, then driving while also not paying attention. Another "lucky to be alive" contestant in the Darwin Awards competition.

And then just plain lucky. 'Really miraculous': Woman uninjured after collision between car, train near Mapleton.

The woman reportedly told officials she thought the train was traveling slower than it was. The train caught the back end of her car, leaving the woman relatively unscathed. According to Cannon, if the woman had been traveling half a second slower she likely would be dead.

Are we shocked that she didn't have a license?

This is not every story, and it only covers about the past 2 weeks or so. And it doesn't include stories where the authorities are not saying why the crash happened.

In a collision, the party that shows up with all the momentum wins. You don't have more momentum than a commuter train, and you really don't have the momentum of a freight train.

If you are in that much of hurry, then you need to leave home earlier.

A quick look for some statistics^‡ shows that in 2020, there were 1,889 highway/railroad collisions, which resulted in 202 fatalities and 675 injuries, which is better than the 1981 numbers of 9,461 collisions, 728 deaths, and 3,293 injuries, but still leaves room for improvement.

Now not all of those will be due to people not paying attention, or deciding that they are in too much of a hurry to wait for a train. But it leaves a lot of room for speculation.

‡ I didn't vet the statistics at Operation Lifesaver, but they are listed as coming from the Dept. of Transportation, and specifically from Federal Railroad Administration.