Person Hit by Train at Chinook Station

[Daradon]

Yeah, there's being distracted though, and then there's just being stupid. Watching that video above, that man isn't just distracted, he's clearly not giving a crap about anything. There's a whole pile of people stopped and waiting that he pushes past. It's almost less about being distracted, and more about not being responsible to to the people and world around him.

It is a sad thing, and I've never been one to say 'damn, what an inconvenience' when something like this occurs. But it's also another thing to baby proof all of society because some people can't pay attention, or worse yet, don't even seem to care to try and pay attention or have any responsibility to the world around them.

I imagine that guy has been in more than his share of car accidents too...

[zamler]

Originally Posted by HotHotHeat

At some point the city has to accept that the current station designs are not safe and changing (under/over passes) them is necessary. It's easy for myself and many others to say 'how stupid do you have to be to get hit by a train?' - But it is clear by now that some genuinely do not understand how these walkways function. I assume they treat it like an roadway cross walk, where it is customary for cars to yield to pedestrians.

100% agreed. But the prevailing attitude seems to be eff those people they need to take responsibility for their own safety. Well yes they do but within reason, two people in two days have died. There are all manner of mechanisms in society that save people from their own carelessness or stupidity why are these train stations exempt from this?

Originally Posted by Daradon

I imagine that guy has been in more than his share of car accidents too...

Wait, you can judge how well he drives by 3 seconds of video? Wow.

[Bobblehead]

When they re-did the Whitehorn stations on 36th they actually added level crossings so people wouldn't need to use the elevated crossings.

https://goo.gl/maps/FGZqZVomH1K2

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by zamler

100% agreed. But the prevailing attitude seems to be eff those people they need to take responsibility for their own safety. Well yes they do but within reason, two people in two days have died. There are all manner of mechanisms in society that save people from their own carelessness or stupidity why are these train stations exempt from this?

Wait, you can judge how well he drives by 3 seconds of video? Wow.

When it comes to stupid mistakes people tend to differentiate between strangers and friends/family. It's easy (but cold and heartless) to point to strangers and statistics and say "who cares? If they're stupid enough to do X/not pay attention, then I don't feel bad for them, let's not worry about upgrading safety for every idiot".

The hypocrisy of these people would hopefully never come, but it would be when they're mom/dad/kid/friend had a momentary lapse in judgment that cost that them they're life as they became the "idiot".

I guarantee you their mom wouldn't be branded the idiot that they brand everyone else as. Their mom would be an incredible person that must of have just had a momentary lapse in judgment and they'd look at the public comments as cruel and heartless, and they wouldn't be able to understand how people could be so cold.

Most make no connection to strangers because that takes extremely high levels of empathy. It's easy to read an article and go "buddy's an idiot", but make no mistake, it's hypocrisy as like I said, no one is hearing about a close friend/family member dying and remaining consistent.

I'm not saying we should baby proof society or shouldn't call more pedestrian awareness, I guess I just always find the comments on these incidents kind of cold and tough to read. We're all people.

[Huntingwhale]

Originally Posted by Flacker

Amsterdam is a good example of putting the onus back on the individual. There are bikes, and vehicles everywhere and if you aren't paying attention, you will get hit. They have LRVs slightly smaller than our C-train, that run straight up the middle of pedestrian boulevards (similar to 8th Ave), and I haven't heard of any locals getting hit by trains.

Came here to say this. It seems to be a North American thing that we need to have our hands held instead of using common sense when venturing out. All you have to do is take a look at people who cross the road and how many have their heads down on their phone instead of paying attention to what is going on. Or people who stand right on the edge of a curb where cars turn. Or the amount of people at the LRT station who willingly walk along the yellow line that clearly says ''do not cross'' while the train pulls up. The list goes on.


Yeah it might seem kind of heartless my comment earlier about it being an inconvenience when something like this happens and I don't think too many people liked it. But fact is, these are preventable incidents. They don't have to happen. When you cross the road or a train crossing, you put your phone down and look both ways. Yes, it's as simple as that. But go ahead and observe the amount of people who simply bumble along the road with their hands on their phone browsing facebook while they cross a busy street. It's mind blowing. These are your lives your playing with people.

Originally Posted by zamler

100% agreed. But the prevailing attitude seems to be eff those people they need to take responsibility for their own safety. Well yes they do but within reason, two people in two days have died. There are all manner of mechanisms in society that save people from their own carelessness or stupidity why are these train stations exempt from this?

How are trains exempt? There are bells, lights and all sorts of warnings for people to see when approaching a crossing. Not to mention, you're at a freaking train station. Common sense says trains will come and go.

The crossing at 39th Ave is probably the most marked up crossing in the city. An arm goes down, bells ring, lights flash and you can see the train coming a mile away. Yet incidents occur at that crossing way too often.

[blueski]

Forget about trying to place blame in this, its a sh$#%y exercise at best. I'll bet the lost productivity expense and cost to Calgary Transit when they need to re-route using buses would more than make up for the cost of making the pedestrian crossings safer. Locking gates seems to be a sensible step.

[Flacker]

Originally Posted by blueski

Forget about trying to place blame in this, its a sh$#%y exercise at best. I'll bet the lost productivity expense and cost to Calgary Transit when they need to re-route using buses would more than make up for the cost of making the pedestrian crossings safer. Locking gates seems to be a sensible step.

How would these locking gates work? How do you prevent people from getting locked inside the barriers?

If the lock can be defeated from the inside, people will just reach over the gate.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by Flacker

Sorry, can't say I agree. If you are walking around in public distracted, a very likely outcome is death. I believe that vehicles yielding the right-of-way to pedestrians has corrupted the natural instincts of people to be self-aware.

Amsterdam is a good example of putting the onus back on the individual. There are bikes, and vehicles everywhere and if you aren't paying attention, you will get hit. They have LRVs slightly smaller than our C-train, that run straight up the middle of pedestrian boulevards (similar to 8th Ave), and I haven't heard of any locals getting hit by trains.

Just because it can happen, and you should have been paying attention, that doesn't mean we shouldn't do more to make it safer.

[HotHotHeat]

Originally Posted by Flacker

How would these locking gates work? How do you prevent people from getting locked inside the barriers?

If the lock can be defeated from the inside, people will just reach over the gate.

Electro magnets that run on the same circuit as the pedestrian warning lights/sound would be an easy addition to the current design.

[Russic]

On my way home (southbound) everyday, Chinook is the only station where the drivers routinely have to lay on the horn or hammer on the brakes. A couple weeks ago a driver lost it on a passenger and refused to move until he got off because he sprinted across the track to make the train.

[blueski]

Originally Posted by Flacker

How would these locking gates work? How do you prevent people from getting locked inside the barriers?

If the lock can be defeated from the inside, people will just reach over the gate.

Some sort of gate or arm that swings to block the way would help. Maybe the locking idea is dumb.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Daradon

Yeah, there's being distracted though, and then there's just being stupid. Watching that video above, that man isn't just distracted, he's clearly not giving a crap about anything. There's a whole pile of people stopped and waiting that he pushes past. It's almost less about being distracted, and more about not being responsible to to the people and world around him.

It is a sad thing, and I've never been one to say 'damn, what an inconvenience' when something like this occurs. But it's also another thing to baby proof all of society because some people can't pay attention, or worse yet, don't even seem to care to try and pay attention or have any responsibility to the world around them.

I imagine that guy has been in more than his share of car accidents too...

I've been thinking about this a bit more.

Initially my opinion has always been: How do you get hit by a train?

Have you been near one? Or a station? They are, physically speaking, rather quite large and somewhat on the loud and noisy side and normally, they tend to be surrounded by a large group of other people whom, if you take your cues by the crowd, by and large tend to all be doing the same thing.

So if you're the only one doing something thats typically something of a 'red flag.'

Watching that video he shoulders his way through a crowd and physically opens an automatically closing gate in order to do his own thing while everyone else waits patiently in the gloriously provided safety of the platform.

He had his headphones on? To what volume level? 110%? And even then train crossings and platforms tend not to rely on only a single form of attracting attention. For every loud bell there tends to be a couple of flashing lights for company.

So not only was he not listening, he wasnt watching. He had touch, but he successfully used that to open the gate. They could institute an alarm via odor like rotten eggs or skunk or something, but I've been on the trains and it stands to reason that this could also go unnoticed if the other senses had little to no effect.

So short of some sort of taste alarm we have to resort to having a guy with a hockey stick at every train crossing prepared to cross-check and/or shin-hack people who not only arent paying attention but are so out of it that apparently no reasonable alarm can snap them back to reality. Being hit with a hockey stick tends to demand notice.

If a hundred people get off a train and one gets hit, what does that say? Why the one special snowflake? How can all of these people successfully avoid colliding with trains on a regular day-to-day basis but the one person cannot?

However, we cannot be so cold or callous as to not understand that death seems to be a fairly harsh punishment even for all of the above. So whats the solution? Other than men armed with hockey sticks?

[Daradon]

^^^ See, but saying 'death is a cold punishment' is kinda disingenuous. No one is punishing him, and society and it's rules are not punishing him either. He did it to himself.

Would we say the same thing if some guy rode his bike off a mountain while not paying attention? Would we say nature is cold for taking his life?

Life is dangerous sometimes. You gotta take care sometimes. It's a hell of a lot safer than it was 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 1000 years ago, and 10,000 years ago, but it will always have elements of danger, and not paying attention is in fact, a good way to die in any age. You cannot eliminate all danger, nor do I think we should.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Daradon

^^^ See, but saying 'death is a cold punishment' is kinda disingenuous. No one is punishing him, and society and it's rules are not punishing him either. He did it to himself.

Would we say the same thing if some guy rode his bike off a mountain while not paying attention? Would we say nature is cold for taking his life?

Life is dangerous sometimes. You gotta take care sometimes. It's a hell of a lot safer than it was 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 1000 years ago, and 10,000 years ago, but it will always have elements of danger, and not paying attention is in fact, a good way to die in any age. You cannot eliminate all danger, nor do I think we should.

You're right, the term 'punishment' was incorrect, its more the reaction to his actions, where people get confused is that in this case his action was inaction or inattention.

I guess my point of that little ramble was this:

Its not as though no one has tried.

Its not like the C-Train is this lumbering death trap to ride on and its every man for themselves. There are extensive safety features.

That just makes things worse. It appears that the safer something is made the harder nature works to breed the better idiot.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by zamler

100% agreed. But the prevailing attitude seems to be eff those people they need to take responsibility for their own safety. Well yes they do but within reason, two people in two days have died. There are all manner of mechanisms in society that save people from their own carelessness or stupidity why are these train stations exempt from this?

Wait, you can judge how well he drives by 3 seconds of video? Wow.

It's not eff those people. I'm in favor for a lot of safety measures. But when your pushing past a large group of people because your so in your own world, or so impatient, that you get hit by a freakin train, then ya, the onus is on you.

It's like he went out of his way to get hurt. It'd be another thing if he was a kid playing on the platform and fell, or was blind or deaf. Or even if it was an empty station at night and no one was was in front of him. But he moved past a large group of people, in daylight, with headphones, after getting off a train, to cross in front of it! That is ALL on him. At that point, he probably woulda hopped a guardrail.

And as for two people getting hit in two days, sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence. Could we make it safer in some places? Sure. Should we? I could probably be convinced in some cases. But in that case, on that video? I'm calling it as I see it. That has nothing to do with safety measures and all to do with that guy.

And if he drives the way he walks, yeah, I'm calling that too.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by Locke

You're right, the term 'punishment' was incorrect, its more the reaction to his actions, where people get confused is that in this case his action was inaction or inattention.

I guess my point of that little ramble was this:

Its not as though no one has tried.

Its not like the C-Train is this lumbering death trap to ride on and its every man for themselves. There are extensive safety features.

That just makes things worse. It appears that the safer something is made the harder nature works to breed the better idiot.

Well, that's kinda my thinking too. There's already a ton of safety measures. Do we really need more?

Shoot, I'd even be willing to say that exchange at Chinook could be improved. It is messy for it's volume. However, in this particular case, safety measures are not the problem, as I stated above.

As far as idiots go: 'We can rebuild him, we have the technology!' Bigger, faster idiots!

[Fuzz]

It is possible he just had a "moment". You have never completely zoned out while thinking about something, just moving on autopilot, them whoops!

Just given the massive inconvenience and cost when this happens, from a business sense I'd suspect locking gates make sense. They would have stopped headphone guy.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

It is possible he just had a "moment". You have never completely zoned out while thinking about something, just moving on autopilot, them whoops!

Just given the massive inconvenience and cost when this happens, from a business sense I'd suspect locking gates make sense. They would have stopped headphone guy.

I'm generally in agreement with you right up to here.

Would they?

Headphone guy successfully hurdled every other obstacle set before him, what reason do you have to think that one would have been any more successful.

[zamler]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

It is possible he just had a "moment". You have never completely zoned out while thinking about something, just moving on autopilot, them whoops!

This has never happened to me when doing something that could be potentially deadly, but it sure has with other things. Meaning, at some point I might zone out for a couple of seconds in a dangerous situation. It can happen to anyone.

BTW many people (or some) are in a comfort zone and don't comprehend dangerous situations because they never feel threatened or in danger. It is a classic case of complacency although I don't know how common sense and self preservation don't kick in. Instinct if you will.

[Flacker]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

It is possible he just had a "moment". You have never completely zoned out while thinking about something, just moving on autopilot, them whoops!

Just given the massive inconvenience and cost when this happens, from a business sense I'd suspect locking gates make sense. They would have stopped headphone guy.

I have asked the question before, locked gates do not make any sense. How do you prevent people from being locked inside the barriers?

If you are having "moments" around moving vehicles, you should really give your head a shake. Incidents like these show, that there are no second chances, even for momentary lapses.