"Trouble on the Tracks" - Discovery Times Channel

There's a good program on the Discovery Times Channel (Available on IO digital cable ch-171 -Cablevision of Long Island) on Wednesday December 7th at 2pm and again at 5pm.
it deals with the dangers at many RR crossings, and how the driver is not always the one at fault.
i think its worth checking out.

New York Times style railroad slander.

Saw it, focused on 3 incidents. One of which was completely the drivers fault but the program pursued alternative issues trying to blame the company for the drivers failure to obey the lights and gates. Typical media sensasonalism trying to capitalize on public fears. Yep, there may be the occassional failure of the equipment, but 99% of the accidents are drivers failure to obey warning devices. It is always so easy to place the blame else where rather than except responsebility for ones own actions

There were 2 accidents involving teenage boys. One was clearly the railroad's fault, since the track worker disabled the signals and tried to comeback later and hide it.

The second, involved another group of teen boys, this one the parents were awarded 7.5 million dollars (I think) and have been on a campain to trash operation lifesaver ever since. I have a feeling this was the drivers fault. It was an empty back road and 3 boys in one car, spells trouble.

There was something intresting about this. It was originally produced in 2001 and focused alot on the Union Pacific. Wasn't this around the time the federal courts threw out the law suit involving groups trying to sue UP over predicessor companies using slaves to build the rail roads? Seems like the NY Times was out for some sort of revenge to me.

The liberal media have an amazing talent when it comes to misrepresentation and outright deception.

True, the signal maintainer should've faced up to his personal responsibility. (unless he was ordered to cover up the mistake by supervisors)

As for people ignoring crossing gates and flashing lights, I see it just about every day. And not a week passes by before I see someone weaving around fully-lowered gates.

Welcome to the forums, BoneValley!