Close call at a grade crossing

[coventry801]

Car in the first clip was not able to stop on snow and barely missed a major crash with Amtrak LD train. Very scary. Had similar experiences when driving on snow.

 

[MARC Rider]

I don't know. The driver said she couldn't stop in time, but she did manage to move to the left around the gate and drive across the tracks. To me, it looked more like she was just in a hurry and drove around the gates, trying to beat the train. She could have veered off to the right to avoid driving through the gates and on to the tracks. Getting stuck in a snowbank is certainly a far better fate than getting hit by a train.

 

[Exvalley]

It could be that the driver stopped long and panic mode set in - so rather than backing up they drove forward.

No matter how you slice it, this was a VERY close call. Thank goodness nobody was hurt.

 

[Trogdor]

I don't know. The driver said she couldn't stop in time, but she did manage to move to the left around the gate and drive across the tracks. To me, it looked more like she was just in a hurry and drove around the gates, trying to beat the train. She could have veered off to the right to avoid driving through the gates and on to the tracks. Getting stuck in a snowbank is certainly a far better fate than getting hit by a train.

It doesn’t look to me like the driver moved around anything. It looks like they lost control and the car veered to the left. The car is already pointing slightly left before the gates came down, and it looks like the gates went down behind the car. If she was trying to beat the train, why would she stop?

 

[PeeweeTM]

If the driver couldn't stop in time, she was driving too fast for the road conditions? The driver should stop driving cars for now. Or at least take training to better grasp the dangers of driving a car.
The crossing installation malfunctioned, too little time between activation and train entering the crossing? The owner of the crossing should be informed in order to have the error rectified.
One way or the other, we have here an opportunity to make the world a better place, I think...

 

[SarahZ]

It's hard to tell how far away she was before the gates came down. There are crossings here where the lights activate and then the gates start to come down just a second later. Some crossings have more of a delay between lights and gates. (Or maybe that's just my imagination?)

When it's snowy like that, you may be going the appropriate speed, but the lights activating/gates coming down when you're too close is akin to a car pulling out in front of you and then slamming on their brakes to turn before you have time to slow down and ensure proper stopping distance. That's happened to me in the winter many times, causing some close calls. People don't realize they need to think about YOUR speed, not just theirs, especially on snow and ice.

As MARCRider mentioned, it would have been better to veer to the right and end up in a snowbank, but people do weird things when they panic. It's hard to tell how quickly she's sliding, if she is sliding to the left already, etc. Even if she'd attempted to turn out of that skid and head to the left or right, the momentum of the car going forward may have put her sideways on the tracks instead.

Bottom line, I'm glad nothing happened.