UTA Frontrunner 02-04-25 Layton accident

[UserNameRequired]

I ran across this video today from Layton. This behavior of getting trapped by the crossing gate and not wanting to break on through to get out of the way of the train is interesting to me (although we don’t know, maybe the auto engine stalled?). They already took a hit to the tailgate, so the vehicle won’t get damaged much more from the gate.

I have a thought that people get so trained and ingrained to never cross a train crossing gate that they wont even do that to escape the obviously dangerous situation they are in. It is quite sad. Is this behavior caused by surprise factor resulting in one’s mind’s performance falling to the level of training you have had?



EDIT Do some vehicles automatically force the brakes on if they “detect” an object behind the vehicle? That would be so frustrating and a reason I could see to bail out. I have an older Buick that beeps when it detects something.

 

[Stevenz]

I think the DSM-5 categorises this behaviour as “chronic non-benign stupidity.” Or, to be more charitable, obliviousness to the world beyond one’s nose. The only thing this person did right was to get out of the car. I would dearly love to know what his insurance company thinks of this video. Just the cost of damage to public property is substantial.

I have never heard of a feature on a car (Consumer Reports would mention it) that automatically brakes when reversing. Going forward, yes, a collision avoidance system, but not backwards.

 

[UserNameRequired]

… I would dearly love to know what his insurance company thinks of this video. Just the cost of damage to public property is substantial.
…

I noted female shoes on the non-blurred portion of the driver. (Males and females both wreck vehicles). One other story noted $100,000 damage to the train only.

 

[tgstubbs1]

I think there might be auto-braking in reverse on some vehicles, but this car could have easily pulled forward. After all, they had already passed the gates.
?

 

[zephyr17]

The only thing this person did right was to get out of the car. I would dearly love to know what his insurance company thinks of this video.

The insurance company thinks the driver is liable and it will have to pay.

The fact the driver was at a grade crossing fouling the tracks, whatever the reason, crossing arms or not, is a case of dead bang liability since the video proves the grade crossing warning devices activated properly. The insurance company will not fight liability and their responsibility to pay because they know they don't have a case. They may go back and forth with UTA about the amount a bit, but UTA can probably back up their numbers pretty well.

I don't know about UTA, but Amtrak goes after drivers (or their estates) that cause grade crossing accidents.

Since the damage pay out will be over a few hundred dollars, the accident is "chargeable" meaning the driver will get dinged on their premium come renewal time. If they had another collision within 3 years their insurance company may refuse to renew.

I hope the driver has a good, high limit on their Liability-Property Damage coverage. A lot of people don't carry more than $50K in PD. If the damage exceeds the coverage limits, the insurance company will cut a check for the limit and walk away, leaving the driver on the hook for the balance. Also, paying out the policy limit also ends the insurance company's "duty to defend" the driver. If the driver wants a legal defense, they'll have to pay for it themselves, the insurance company isn't obligated to provide a defense after having paid the limit. Though the insurance company paying out and walking doesn't bode well for a successful defense. The driver would probably be better served by putting their money towards a bankruptcy attorney rather than a defense.

As to whether the insurance company "thinks" that this is in any way extraordinary, they don't. As far as the insurance company is concerned it's just another Tuesday.

 

[GDRRiley]

This seems a little less cut and dry given the car got hit into the intersection. Then they chose to partial back up over going forwards or all the way back.

 

[Stevenz]

The insurance company thinks the driver is liable and it will have to pay.

The fact the driver was at a grade crossing fouling the tracks, whatever the reason, crossing arms or not, is a case of dead bang liability since the video proves the grade crossing warning devices activated properly. The insurance company will not fight liability and their responsibility to pay because they know they don't have a case. They may go back and forth with UTA about the amount a bit, but UTA can probably back up their numbers pretty well.

I don't know about UTA, but Amtrak goes after drivers (or their estates) that cause grade crossing accidents.

Since the damage pay out will be over a few hundred dollars, the accident is "chargeable" meaning the driver will get dinged on their premium come renewal time. If they had another collision within 3 years their insurance company may refuse to renew.

I hope the driver has a good, high limit on their Liability-Property Damage coverage. A lot of people don't carry more than $50K in PD. If the damage exceeds the coverage limits, the insurance company will cut a check for the limit and walk away, leaving the driver on the hook for the balance. Also, paying out the policy limit also ends the insurance company's "duty to defend" the driver. If the driver wants a legal defense, they'll have to pay for it themselves, the insurance company isn't obligated to provide a defense after having paid the limit. Though the insurance company paying out and walking doesn't bode well for a successful defense. The driver would probably be better served by putting their money towards a bankruptcy attorney rather than a defense.

As to whether the insurance company "thinks" that this is in any way extraordinary, they don't. As far as the insurance company is concerned it's just another Tuesday.

It sounds like you’re in the insurance business so I can’t much argue with you but if I was the company I would say you put yourself in harm’s way by deliberate negligence and we don’t insure that sort of thing. Or if one was to, say, deliberately park in front of a speeding bus and the bus hit them the insurance company might just raise the premium next time? I clearly don’t understand the insurance business. Or maybe I’d like to have that insurance company.

 

[zephyr17]

It sounds like you’re in the insurance business so I can’t much argue with you but if I was the company I would say you put yourself in harm’s way by deliberate negligence and we don’t insure that sort of thing. Or if one was to, say, deliberately park in front of a speeding bus and the bus hit them the insurance company might just raise the premium next time? I clearly don’t understand the insurance business. Or maybe I’d like to have that insurance company.

You would have to prove that they deliberately drove onto the tracks with the intent to get hit by a train. Insurance doesn't cover intentional acts. That is very tough to actually prove and not worth the money to try. Plus they'd be painting a giant target on their backs for the Utah insurance commission. It is intentionally difficult to deny liability coverage.

It is simple negligence. Simple negligence, like texting, causing accidents is pretty much what insurance is for. And not very many repeated incidents of simple negligence will cause an insurance company to drop you. But it won't cause denial of coverage.

Anyway, this is just another day and not exceptional in any way to an insurance carrier, especially since only property damage appears to be involved. It is an easy case, with the driver's insurance adjuster and UTA's insurance or loss prevention people clearing it off their desks with minimum time and trouble, pretty much with UTA just documenting their costs and the driver's insurance cutting a check to cover them.

Then underwriting will decide whether or not they're willing to renew the policy and decide how much of a premium increase to hit them with if they are.

PS, Warren Buffett's fortune is founded in insurance. So there's that.

 

[AniAni]

I ran across this video today from Layton. This behavior of getting trapped by the crossing gate and not wanting to break on through to get out of the way of the train is interesting to me (although we don’t know, maybe the auto engine stalled?). They already took a hit to the tailgate, so the vehicle won’t get damaged much more from the gate.

I have a thought that people get so trained and ingrained to never cross a train crossing gate that they wont even do that to escape the obviously dangerous situation they are in. It is quite sad. Is this behavior caused by surprise factor resulting in one’s mind’s performance falling to the level of training you have had?



EDIT Do some vehicles automatically force the brakes on if they “detect” an object behind the vehicle? That would be so frustrating and a reason I could see to bail out. I have an older Buick that beeps when it detects something.

Interesting! I hadn’t considered that situation. Now I will! Thanks!

 

[rookzie]

So now someone needs to get the driver of that pickup cited and put on the hook for all that damage compensation; so far no one has mentioned this.

 

[TomPittsfieldMA]

This is an extraordinarly complete set of video clips, which reveal a complex situation.

There were two separate accidents.

First accident: The car that got hit was appropriately stopped before the gate. The car behind pushed it only the tracks.

Second accident: The first car then started to back up but stopped with its rear bumper against the gate: it couldn't back up further to clear the tracks because of the car behind it hadn't moved. When the car that started all this then did pull back, the first car tried to move back and encountered significant restistance from the gate. There's no reason to expect that an ordinary driver would know that the gate would break away, and very little time to process the situation. So with the passenger train bearing down, the driver understandably escaped. And evefything happened within seconds.

It seems to me that the fault is entirely with the driver who caused the first accident.

 

[Asher]

Looks to me like some automatic function stopped the SUV from moving after interference from that crossing guard, the driver definitely knew he had to clear the crossing. Thankfully he was able to get out of the vehicle.

“Many modern vehicles are equipped with an "Automatic Emergency Braking" (AEB) system which can automatically apply the brakes when it detects an imminent collision with an object, essentially "locking" the brakes if necessary to avoid or mitigate a crash; this feature is becoming increasingly common in new cars and is considered a standard safety feature on many models.”

 

[UserNameRequired]

So now someone needs to get the driver of that pickup cited and put on the hook for all that damage compensation; so far no one has mentioned this.

Isn’t the truck only responsible for the first hit, the light rear ending of the SUV? This is always what I have been taught about it as a non-insurance person.

If a Peterbilt rear ends my Yugo at at stop light, and they shove me into the Maserati in front of me which totals it, I am the person that hit the supercar and my insurance ends up paying for the Maserati.

 

[Stevenz]

I didn’t see any fault by the pick up truck. When it backed up there was room for the car to be clear of the tracks.

So the dilemma is to not get the heck off the tracks for fear of breaking a gate or a window, or leave the car on the tracks and … whatever.

By the way, any idea what that signal light would cost to fix?

 

[Stevenz]

Looks to me like some automatic function stopped the SUV from moving after interference from that crossing guard, the driver definitely knew he had to clear the crossing. Thankfully he was able to get out of the vehicle.

“Many modern vehicles are equipped with an "Automatic Emergency Braking" (AEB) system which can automatically apply the brakes when it detects an imminent collision with an object, essentially "locking" the brakes if necessary to avoid or mitigate a crash; this feature is becoming increasingly common in new cars and is considered a standard safety feature on many models.”

To my knowledge they do not work in reverse. Some systems give a warning beep if near an object in back of the car but do not apply brakes. I think the chances of this accident being down to a malfunction of the car are very remote. Until we have Train Collision Avoidance Systems it seems the best thing to do is not stop on tracks. Heck, it makes me nervous to stop on a track even if I know the line has been abandoned for decades.

 

[tgstubbs1]

Maybe the driver of the SUV wanted to remain at the scene of the first collision after being rear-ended by the truck. It should have driven through the crossing and waited on the other side.

 

[Cal]

Is there any policy regarding putting the train into emergency? It doesn't seem like the engineer did so until the impact. Is it because engineers assume the driver is just being stupid and wants to see if they will move last minute? I believe that the protocol for starting a train again after an emergency stop is probably annoying, leading to engineers wanting to avoid that at all costs. But I feel like in many of these grade crossing hits, the train has had quite a bit of time to go into emergency (definitely not expecting it to stop or even be going that slow upon impact). Not trying to blame engineers, just trying to make sense of the situation

 

[tgstubbs1]

To my knowledge they do not work in reverse. Some systems give a warning beep if near an object in back of the car but do not apply brakes. I think the chances of this accident being down to a malfunction of the car are very remote. Until we have Train Collision Avoidance Systems it seems the best thing to do is not stop on tracks. Heck, it makes me nervous to stop on a track even if I know the line has been abandoned for decades.

Here's what GM says about the system...

​

---

If your vehicle has this available feature, Reverse Automatic
alerts you and/or automatically provides hard emergency braking to help avoid collisions with detected vehicles and objects directly behind you when you’re in REVERSE.


.... You can override automatic braking at any time by pressing the accelerator or by braking; if you don’t press the brake pedal soon after the stop, the Electric Parking Brake may be set, which you can release with the Electric Parking Brake button while pressing the brake pedal.

https://www.gmc.com/support/vehicle/driving-safety/brakes/reverse-automatic-braking

 

[John Bredin]

Isn’t the truck only responsible for the first hit, the light rear ending of the SUV? This is always what I have been taught about it as a non-insurance person.

If a Peterbilt rear ends my Yugo at at stop light, and they shove me into the Maserati in front of me which totals it, I am the person that hit the supercar and my insurance ends up paying for the Maserati.

My understanding is the rearending vehicle is presumed at fault, every presumption has narrow exceptions from unusual circumstances, and the presumption exists because every driver is expected to maintain enough distance in the flow of traffic, and pay enough attention, to not rearend the vehicle in front of it if that vehicle stops suddenly. It's a rule or presumption for *moving* traffic.

How does that apply when stopped at a traffic light? You shouldn't stop right on someone's bumper, of course, but if everyone stopped SO far apart as to not collide if rear-ended from a dead stop, the line of cars would stretch to the previous intersection. The expectation to maintain a gap of a car-length or two couldn't possibly carry over to being stopped. Moreover, a stopped driver is pushed into the vehicle ahead purely by physics and not by any driving lapse of their own. The avoidable driving decision that imparted those physics was in the moving vehicle that hit the rearmost stopped vehicle.

Caveat: I'm not in insurance and never practiced tort law in the vehicle collision field. Just my opinion as a layman with a basic college education who drives.

 

[rookzie]

I didn’t see any fault by the pick up truck. When it backed up there was room for the car to be clear of the tracks.

So the dilemma is to not get the heck off the tracks for fear of breaking a gate or a window, or leave the car on the tracks and … whatever.

By the way, any idea what that signal light would cost to fix?

Then perhaps you only watched the first 15 seconds or less of the video or were oblivious to the direct impact of the pickup with the SUV, around the 25-27 second frame marker of the clip. That range shows the pickup literally shoving the SUV beyond the white stop band on the pavement. That the pickup reversed to clear the space occurred only after its driver observed that the SUV had attempted to return in reverse to clear the track. The pickup occupied the space that previously had been that of the SUV. The pickup sat there and is shown reversing only around frame marker 35, obviously to no avail of the SUV at that point in time.

 

[UserNameRequired]

Here's what GM says about the system...

​

---

If your vehicle has this available feature, Reverse Automatic
alerts you and/or automatically provides hard emergency braking to help avoid collisions with detected vehicles and objects directly behind you when you’re in REVERSE.


.... You can override automatic braking at any time by pressing the accelerator or by braking; if you don’t press the brake pedal soon after the stop, the Electric Parking Brake may be set, which you can release with the Electric Parking Brake button while pressing the brake pedal.

https://www.gmc.com/support/vehicle/driving-safety/brakes/reverse-automatic-braking

This is quite interesting. I am trying to decide if getting rear ended, pushed onto live tracks with a train bearing down, horn, etc. then try to reverse and have the vehicle automation apply brakes and not allow me to get off the tracks, would I be able to figure out the release sequence in time? Likely a rarely practiced occurrence so one would have had to have read the owners manual ahead of time and been able to bring it to mind in a second or two. You can see the brake lights off and on in the video. I couldn’t make out the reverse lights.

I think my own reaction would have been to visually check tracks ahead and move forward. Now if there had been two trains, I could see myself suddenly decide reverse.

I see Jeep when I look at the SUV.

 

[HalftoneCHI IDTX 4611]

So now someone needs to get the driver of that pickup cited and put on the hook for all that damage compensation; so far no one has mentioned this.

I heard about that a while ago, ALC-42 339 was involved in that incident, I'm still upset about that.

 

[Stevenz]

Maybe the driver of the SUV wanted to remain at the scene of the first collision after being rear-ended by the truck. It should have driven through the crossing and waited on the other side.

Crikey. I had not noticed that the truck rear ended the car! That changes everything I initially thought.

 

[west point]

The only choice when rear ended may be crash the forward gate. But what if Auto braking does sense the gate down and stops auto from going forward????.

Another idiot programing much like loco hitting something and not being able to restart except by tech.

 

[MARC Rider]

The only choice when rear ended may be crash the forward gate. But what if Auto braking does sense the gate down and stops auto from going forward????.

Ah yes, looks like "autonomous vehicles" are still not ready for prime time.