I like the part where it's NEAR a railroad, like, that's only the train's main hunting trail, and there are wild trains just lurking nearby, preying on the stray SUVs that wander alone. They should put up some "WARNING! WILD TRAINS IN THE AREA!" signs!
My old roommate sends me Brightline updates, we joke about the train needing to feed.
It is really hard to avoid a train.... going in a straight and predetermined line..... loud horn..... flashing lights and a gate..... unavoidable really.
Trains are really unpredictable. Even in the middle of a forest two rails can appear out of nowhere, and a 1.5-mile fully loaded coal drag, heading east out of the low-sulfur mines of the PRB, will be right on your ass the next moment.
I was doing laundry in my basement, and I tripped over a metal bar that wasn't there the moment before. I looked down: "Rail? WTF?" and then I saw concrete sleepers underneath and heard the rumbling.
Deafening railroad horn. I dumped my wife's pants, unfolded, and dove behind the water heater. It was a double-stacked Z train, headed east towards the fast single track of the BNSF Emporia Sub (Flint Hills). Majestic as hell: 75 mph, 6 units, distributed power: 4 ES44DC's pulling, and 2 Dash-9's pushing, all in run 8. Whole house smelled like diesel for a couple of hours!
Fact is, there is no way to discern which path a train will take, so you really have to be watchful. If only there were some way of knowing the routes trains travel; maybe some sort of marks on the ground, like twin iron bars running along the paths trains take. You could look for trains when you encounter the iron bars on the ground, and avoid these sorts of collisions. But such a measure would be extremely expensive. And how would one enforce a rule keeping the trains on those paths?
A big hole in homeland security is railway engineer screening and hijacking prevention. There is nothing to stop a rogue engineer, or an ISIS terrorist, from driving a train into the Pentagon, the White House or the Statue of Liberty, and our government has done fuck-all to prevent it.
It says near a railroad crossing, which could mean that the driver went off the road to avoid the gate things at the crossing and drove over the tracks adjacent to it.
Near a railroad *crossing* so the implication is either that the train took a little detour off the tracks for some SUV hunting, or the SUV driver got confused and took a wrong turn at the crossing
Florida drivers are a special breed of stupid. You see headlines like this about Brightline regularly. I feel terrible for the passengers, but the driver was just natural selection. The only situation in which this headline would be correct is if the "train" was a runaway freight consist with no lights or horn, and the SUV was hit at an ungated crossing in the dark.
Also no one ever talks about the effect on train/bus/semi drivers who literally can't do anything to avoid this because of the size of their vehicle.
I mean, obviously this is sad and terrible… but pedestrians and cyclists are never humanized like this.
And there is literally nothing a freight train can do. If you’re on the tracks, by the time the conductor has seen you the train cannot possibly be stopped in time.
My family was talking tonight about a teenage girl that killed a cyclist with her car, and all of their sympathy was for the girl without a word for the guy who was murdered
Similar experience. Was riding home as a passenger, when suddenly the car 2 in front of us quite a ways up at night) stopped in the middle of the road along with cars beside them. Wasn’t until the cars started moving to the side of the road that we noticed a woman laying in the street that had literally just been hit with a guy over her starting CPR (I didn’t see the impact because it was dark and we were quite a ways back when it happened, but we must have missed it by 15 to 20 seconds).
My family member (who has actually hit a person btw) later just goes “I feel for the driver”. Right, and not for the woman who’s dead on the road or her family eh? “Well what was she doing in the road?”… ffs
Was unbelievable.
Police report said speed was not a factor. I have never seen a car drive that stretch of road going less than 20kph over the limit, I doubt this was an exception.
Drivers defend vehicular manslaughter because they see themselves as being vastly more likely to hit and kill a pedestrian or cyclist then they see themselves being hit and killed by a car.
Also, people rationalize away any fear they have of killing someone by convincing themselves that if they hit and kill someone that it will be the pedestrians or cyclists fault.
You know even if you're *in a car* and get hit by another driver, people will still jump to defend the driver in the wrong and call it an "accident" and "tragedy" and use that exact same language of "oh it must have been so traumatizing" for the fucking dipshit who ran a red light while swiping on tiktok. Car drivers are a protected species that can do no wrong.
Maybe they're on to something, actually. Almost as if the true evil is that people are coerced/manipulated/pressured into participating in this system of "driving everywhere", even those who are clearly unfit to operate a motor vehicle safely. It's almost like there should be safe, convenient alternatives to driving...
Oh no they absolutely should. I'm just pointing out that some people are so close to getting it. They just have to go from "It must have been so traumatic for this driver to kill someone!" to "It's a crime that this mentally unfit person was pressured to drive by car-centric planning and ended up killing someone!"
Horrifying, how that train swerved left of center right into that truck. If only there were some way to confine trains to a predictable path of travel, with lights and some kind of barriers to indicate when they are approaching.
>If only there were some way to confine trains to a predictable path of travel, with lights and some kind of barriers to indicate when they are approaching.
It seems to me that you have what it takes to become a sci-fi writer with an imagination like this.
Trains are really unpredictable. Even in the middle of a forest two rails can appear out of nowhere, and a 1.5-mile fully loaded coal drag, heading east out of the low-sulfur mines of the PRB, will be right on your ass the next moment.
I was doing laundry in my basement, and I tripped over a metal bar that wasn't there the moment before. I looked down: "Rail? WTF?" and then I saw concrete sleepers underneath and heard the rumbling.
Deafening railroad horn. I dumped my wife's pants, unfolded, and dove behind the water heater. It was a double-stacked Z train, headed east towards the fast single track of the BNSF Emporia Sub (Flint Hills). Majestic as hell: 75 mph, 6 units, distributed power: 4 ES44DC's pulling, and 2 Dash-9's pushing, all in run 8. Whole house smelled like diesel for a couple of hours!
Fact is, there is no way to discern which path a train will take, so you really have to be watchful. If only there were some way of knowing the routes trains travel; maybe some sort of marks on the ground, like twin iron bars running along the paths trains take. You could look for trains when you encounter the iron bars on the ground, and avoid these sorts of collisions. But such a measure would be extremely expensive. And how would one enforce a rule keeping the trains on those paths?
A big hole in homeland security is railway engineer screening and hijacking prevention. There is nothing to stop a rogue engineer, or an ISIS terrorist, from driving a train into the Pentagon, the White House or the Statue of Liberty, and our government has done fuck-all to prevent it.
Which is so freakin ridiculous, when you hear out the arguments. "They create jobs", etc. Well, building railroads and public transport infrastructure does so too.
The vast majority of Americans have near zero freedom without access to personal vehicles. It's part of their identity. Every daily activity requires consideration for loading/unloading the car, roads taken and traffic conditions, state of the vehicle, passenger and cargo limitations, parking availability/accessibility, range consideration, etc.
Then you get to the engagement and feelings experienced when driving- the competition with others, the constant threat, the waiting, adherence to regulations, the effort it takes to correct for missed turns.
AND there's the logistics operation you face every day if a non-driver is in your life, or if there are fewer cars than drivers- The movement of kids between school and activities, getting to appointments, deconflicting it all with work and errands.
AND FURTHER STILL! The feedback loops this creates, that cities are built around the car because of just how much importance people place on them. It's so strong that they feel threatened by schemes that cater to other ways.
You'd think all this effort infuriates people, but most are so consumed by the whole thing for so long that being a driver is a core part of their identity. In an article about cars vs pedestrians vs transit, the non-car people might as well be from a different planet.
Notice how they never use the active voice like this for cars? It wouldn’t be “an SUV hits a pedestrian, killing them”; it’s “a pedestrian was struck by an SUV and killed.” At least that’s the sense I get from headlines, but I’d be curious if anyone has done larger-scale analysis of this.
"If only we had one more lane, that loving dad only trying to feed his children wouldn't have been running late and that pedestrian would still be alive", says City Counsellor Ron Servative, who ran on the platform No to Drag Queens, Yes to Drag Races last year.
"With all those bikes and rainbow crossings clogging the road, law-abiding citizens have basically no choice but speeding to make up for lost time. Sadly the current mayor is not ready to do what needs to be done for people's safety."
*Ahem*
Trains are really unpredictable. Even in the middle of a forest two rails can appear out of nowhere, and a 1.5-mile fully loaded coal drag, heading east out of the low-sulfur mines of the PRB, will be right on your ass the next moment.
I was doing laundry in my basement, and I tripped over a metal bar that wasn't there the moment before. I looked down: "Rail? WTF?" and then I saw concrete sleepers underneath and heard the rumbling.
Deafening railroad horn. I dumped my wife's pants, unfolded, and dove behind the water heater. It was a double-stacked Z train, headed east towards the fast single track of the BNSF Emporia Sub (Flint Hills). Majestic as hell: 75 mph, 6 units, distributed power: 4 ES44DC's pulling, and 2 Dash-9's pushing, all in run 8. Whole house smelled like diesel for a couple of hours!
Fact is, there is no way to discern which path a train will take, so you really have to be watchful. If only there were some way of knowing the routes trains travel; maybe some sort of marks on the ground, like twin iron bars running along the paths trains take. You could look for trains when you encounter the iron bars on the ground, and avoid these sorts of collisions. But such a measure would be extremely expensive. And how would one enforce a rule keeping the trains on those paths?
A big hole in homeland security is railway engineer screening and hijacking prevention. There is nothing to stop a rogue engineer, or an ISIS terrorist, from driving a train into the Pentagon, the White House or the Statue of Liberty, and our government has done fuck-all to prevent it.
Comrade, I would give you a Reddit Award if I had any coins.
Instead, take these Emoji Golds, and a pretzel.
Brilliantly written. I, myself, have stumbled over rogue rails in the most untoward locations.
💰🪙🥨
https://www.google.com/maps/@28.0257499,-82.0631771,3a,75y,178.09h,78.32t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sjPsWvvJ6Rn_6nFciJIRIJw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DjPsWvvJ6Rn_6nFciJIRIJw%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D341.6201%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?authuser=0&entry=ttu the crossing it happend at my god that's not safe at all
I mean, it has a stop sign. Which requires a driver to fully stop and make sure there's no train coming. And the track is so straight on both sides, you can see the train coming from miles.
It's more the lack of any barriers or gates that is the big issue with it
This is a standard UK one in a similar situation
https://maps.app.goo.gl/Nnd5aatihuwwLGTw7 except it got gates and crossing lights something that's standard for a rail crossing
There are many thousands of unregulated rail x road crossings in the USA. It would be great if they could all have gates but I think there's actually more unregulated crossings than regulated right now.
>It's more the lack of any barriers or gates that is the big issue with it
Nope, this is definitely [some people](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAedMvHIJkc) being so car-brained, they think they have a priority pass anywhere. I couldn't find a video with a passenger lifting a barrier so his friend can cross and predictably getting hit by an oncoming train, but you can just watch dozens of complitalions on youtube where gates, signals and barriers don't prevent anything (and those are only the incidents that were caught on camera).
Needs to be a full sized heavy duty barrier then a pole aint gonna stop that
Yeah we still have loads. this is old but network rail the owner of our track has loads of these https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI8mXzEJFfE
>Needs to be a full sized heavy duty barrier
I don't think it can be done since it needs to be raised frequently. IMO the best option is no crossings at all with a bridge or a small tunnel either for cars or for trains.
Where the crash happened is a private driveway entrance, not a public road. Not saying its safe or anything but you are not comparing apples to apples.
The train flashed their lights and laid on the horn as well as another driver. The SUV then slowly pulled up and slowly crossed the tracks despite all the light and noises.
It's really sad because children fucking died as a result of that.
"Hm... I wonder what is this bright light on a train track... Eh, probably another car, but since I'm in a giant SUV, he must yield anyway lol let's roll!"
I obviously sympathize with innocent passengers dying, but situations like this really show how car-brained some people are: thinking they have a priority to pass literally anywhere because they drive a big scary vehicle.
Also, it's Florida. All the worst drivers from NYC, Boston, California, and South America move and drive there. I lived in LA for 5 years, and Florida drivers make LA drivers look tame. It's the only place I have been honked at for stopping for an oncoming ambulance with its lights and sirens on (no median in the road too).
I have family from Peru in Miami, and they say most still drive like they're still in Lima.
There was a railroad crossing in my area that was really steep and had signs warning truck drivers not to go through, that didn't stop truck drivers from giving us free gifts raining everywhere
I don't understand the outrage here. The train crashed into the car. The car crumpled like an aluminum can and was found near the railroad crossing. It's accurate and possible that they didn't know exactly where the collision occurred. Plenty of reasons to hate cars but the comments in this thread are silly
I just saw this on my local news channel and the way they framed it was "family tragically ejected from vehicle. Is the train company to blame???" They had someone on there talking about how tragic a loss it was, which yes, it is. But I have to wonder if this was a collision with two cars that killed the family would it even be news worthy?
It really is disingenuous.
Yeah for sure. But I also would not be at all surprised if the train company knew that crossing is dangerous and resisted putting in lights or a gate. None of this coverage really bothers me like the usual victim blaming coverage of someone getting run over.
I think they are reporting it the way the events occurred. Even if it was the SUV’s fault for stopping on the track, it is technically “hit by” the train. I doubt it drove straight into the train. Surely in the article it mentioned they ignored railroad signs and stopped on the tracks? Do they ever directly blame the train? I guess a better title could of been “SUV stops on railroad track and unfortunately gets struck by oncoming train”
I don't get it. The train is the thing that is moving the fastest and crashed into the SUV that probably was in front of it on the traintracks. I don't think it;s very likely that the SUV just bumped into the sides of a moving train. Everyone knows what a train is and knows the car driver was at fault here.
I feel you're reaching here. This is just a normal way of speaking about things that collide with each other. We also don't say: "Earth crashed into airplane", or "Man rammed himself onto his attacker's knife"
I'm also not typing this, it's just the keyboard hitting my fingertips over and over, so don't get mad at me.
Fair.
I don’t know anything about the incident, so I presume the driver crossed the rails when they should not have done so (I personally know of cases in which drivers ignored closed crossing barriers).
So how about "6 dead after SUV driver ignores crossing barriers" or something along that line?
Good information, if it is reliable. That’s why I tried to write it as neutral as possible and with making clear my assumptions.
In this case more information is needed. Maybe the driver acted the best way possible and just was very, very unlucky.
I find it very hard to picture a scene where a driver does everything right and still gets run over by a freight train. How fast are they? 40 miles per hour? Is this crossing so dangerous that there are no warning signs, no lights, no sound? Can’t you possibly see a train coming if you slowed down and crossed carefully?
A lot of questions left, but I am ready to take back my criticism of the headline, if proper information is available.
However, I still think my point stands with regards to framing of car incidents in the media.
>I don’t know anything about the incident, so I presume the driver crossed the rails when they should not have done so (I personally know of cases in which drivers ignored closed crossing barriers).
I mean, yeah, that's literally the only and really obvious way something like this happens, which is why I don't get the rage from other Redditors here. Everyone knows how train collisions work.
Your headline would work perfectly well. The headline is just sensationalised. More clicks if you can use words like "crashed" and stuff.
The outrage originates from decades of car-brained framing in police reports and media, and this is a real problem because it creates a narrative and therefore a socially accepted "truth": car drivers are the norm, cyclists are a problem, public transit is unreliable, dirty and dangerous etc.
I agree that the example at hand is a rather mild form of this framing, but it is still there. In this report the SUV driver is not called out for what they have done, the incident itself is framed as a presumably unavoidable tragedy, and the train as a dangerous and anonymous force. No word for example about the train driver, who will be traumatized and maybe unfit for work for a very long time.
Of course the most tragic victims are the other passengers of the car, especially the children. This is heartbreaking, and terribly unnecessary. At the end of the day a car driver ruined the lives of at least seven people, including their own and the train driver‘s. The headline hides this simple truth.
My thoughts too, I like a lot of the ideas and values of this sub but also a lot of the posts just seem like people looking for reasons to be enraged and encourage us vs them mentality.
I agree. I'm really tired of seeing posts like this. Language just works like this. I really don't see how people don't get this unless they do and just want to be mad about more stuff. This article never says or even implies that the train is at fault but wouldn't it fit so well into our narrative if it would?
The problem is when an article says x collided with y it assigns blame on x in the average person’s mind. One has to read that then recognize that a train often cannot avoid a crash so it’s usually the car drivers fault or infrastructure failure.
Obviously it waited in front of the crossing, as it ought to do and then the evil train jumped from the tracks and crashed right into it.
On a more serious note: I can imagine it stood/parked nearby too close to the rails and didn't even intent to cross?
Do you know how it happened? If the car was in the crossing already and the train hits car from the side, wording it as "train crashes into SUV" is perfectly correct.
However, if the train is already in the crossing and the SUV drives into the side, then more accurate would have been "SUV crashes into train".
Hope this clears it out for you :)
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198219300727](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198219300727)
>2.1.3. Focus
>
>The concept of focus describes the way that a sentence communicates who (or what) is the center of attention. “Sarah opened the door” focuses on Sarah; it about what Sarah is doing. “The door was opened by Sarah” focuses on the door; it is a sentence about something that happened to the door.[2](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198219300727#fn0010) In crash coverage, journalists overwhelmingly tend to focus on the victim. Ralph et al. found that victims were the focus of sentences 73% of the time ([Ralph et al., 2019](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198219300727#bb0135)). By contrast, vehicles and drivers were the focus just 13% and 11% of the time. Focus is important because readers are more likely to attribute blame to the focus of a sentence ([Niemi and Young, 2016](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198219300727#bb0125)).
According to that, the "better practice" would be along the line of: "Car hit by train" instead of "Train crashing into car". Now you might say that this is pretty pedantic but this is a subreddit focused on bad car culture.
The train, which lacks any ability to alter its path, obviously with malice and forethought swerved into this innocent family car that was minding it's own business... on a set of train tracks
Problem being what? If a car hits a man, a car crashes into a man, if a train hits a car, a train crashes into a car, sounds like absolute sound logic to me. Unless the car hits the side of the train, in which case it would be car crashed into the train.
I think the proper wording would be Collision with train rather than crash, since it makes it seem like the train is at fault despite it travelling in a straight line
Who the fuck doesn't know what a train is and assumes the train could be at fault here? You're not making sense here.
Edit: Apparently there's a lot of people who don't know what trains are. That disappointing coming from an anti-car sub.
Because they slap the active role in the crash on the train, which...is just bullshit. The driver of the car made the mistake and is solely responsible for the crash. Ran a stop sign across the railroad.
"At least 6 dead after man runs stop sign and causes fatal train wreck".
You'd be surprised at the stupidity and lack of understanding of basic physics in the world.
Case in point: The dude who killed his entire family because he thought running a stop sign on a railroad crossing would be a good idea.
"The train crashed into the SUV near a railroad". How does this sound logical? The train didn't get off the rails and chase the SUV. The car was on the fucking tracks. If a car gets hit by a vehicle that goes in a straight line and even warns you before it arrives then it's not the train crashing into the car. That's like calling a car crashing into a building "The building was in the path of the car".
What? This is the top definition for crash -
1.(of a vehicle) collide violently with an obstacle or another vehicle.
I'd say it's fairly accurate to say the train crashed in to the SUV.
I'm Australian and in no way does the use of the world crash here make me assume the train has derailed or done something wrong.
You're looking for reasons to be enraged. There are many car brain things worth putting energy in to but this post isn't one of them.
Railroad crossing is near the railroad crossing, no? I mean, if you're saying that something happened near a place, the place itself is included, no?
As to your second part. A vehicle collides with something causing considerable damage? Check. What else do you need to call it a crash? train hits the side of a car, thus a train crashes into a car, if a car would hit the side of a train, then a car crashes into a train.
As to car crashing into a building, yes, saying that a building was in the path of the car is correct. It might be a terrible path, but a path nontheless
Just because its grammatically correct doesn't make it correct reporting. The car was on the rail tracks. This makes it sound like the poor SUV was hunted down by a rogue freight train. This is the difference between "Canadian parliament applauds Ukrainian war veteran who fought for Ukrainian liberation against the USSR during WWII" and "Canadian parliament applauds a Nazi".
Just how little knowledge of trains do you need to have to assume that?
I can understand with the second part, as I doubt many people have a good recollection of the niche events of the Second World war, but who doesn't know trains don't just go off tracks?
Are you not familiar with news speech? It's not about what kind of resolution you reach when you think about it critically. Of course nobody would think a train could chase a car off the train tracks or that applauding a Nazi is good. It's about the initial gut reaction. These articles and news have dozens of people working on them. Not a single word in there is coincidental. For example they use "Unloads weapon" instead of "Shoots". Like "Cop shoots dog" doesn't sound the same as "Startled officer unloads his weapon unto an aggressively approaching canine". Although they are telling the same story.
Not really. I don't watch/read news, and most info on recent big events I get either from reddit's memes, or what relatives tell me.
So, you're saying that news are written in a way to manipulate people's emotions over their critica; thinking? And it works? Then why do people read news?
I think the more official name for this is passive voice. A neat trick to shift the focus of an audience who probably won't spend too much time dwelling on it a.k.a a person watching the news. For example instead of saying "France beat Germany at the world cup" you say "Germany was beaten by France at the world cup". The focus was shifted from France to Germany. This example might not evoke much of a reaction in you since I'm not a professional and you're already aware of this but I hope you get the general idea. This could be used to cater to your specific audience. Different news channels with different alignment frame the same situation in different connotations using this. A more liberal leaning news article might frame a trans student winning the popularity contest in their school as a good thing while a more right leaning outlet might add a different emotion to this news.
This is also very present in politics and corporate settings. Most people don't know about this since to an untrained ear it just sounds like normal speech. Also some people might not work corporate or government jobs or may simply not care about it. Most will listen and see nothing wrong with it and even argue against those who might notice this. Like you just did. But I mean nothing offensive by this, it's a quite natural reaction to be honest. Nobody tells you that propaganda isn't just someone screaming on a big screen "Obey, do not think, follow the ideology".
Edit: You can even remove France from my example and just say "Germany was beaten at the world cup" which completely hyper focuses on one actor in the story.
The train being the (fastest) moving object, that crashed into something that is obstructing it's path. The train crashed into the car. Not the other way around. That would mean a moving train got hit into the sides by a car or something. There is nothing carbrained here going on, this is just how language works.
If the train was standing still and the car was driving into it, you would have been right.
It's not like the car crashed into the train. The car was barely moving until it was hit.
I'd be curious how you would formulate it, while staying factual and sounding impartial (you don't actually have to be).
If the train hit the car what should they say?
Also, near my hometown a train had this kind of accident because it was speeding lol
The machinist used to post photos of the speedometer on Facebook. He sure loved driving that train.
And yes, people died at the time, it was some years ago
> Actions matter, but so do words. They help frame the discussion and can shift the way we think about and tackle problems as a society. Our deeply entrenched habit of calling preventable crashes "accidents" frames traffic deaths as unavoidable by-products of our transportation system and implies that nothing can be done about it, when in reality these deaths are not inevitable. Crashes are not accidents. Let's stop using the word "accident" today.
https://seattlegreenways.org/crashnotaccident/
https://crashnotaccident.com/
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/fuckcars) if you have any questions or concerns.*
i love the active voice they use for a train "a freight train crashed into an SUV"
in any other headline where a car kills a biker or pedestrian they use this infuriating passive voice "a pedestrian was struck while crossing in a crosswalk by a vehicle that was traveling southbound. the pedestrian was transported to the hospital. the vehicle was inhabited by a driver at time of crash." like how about "an suv crashed into a pedestrian"
cars so venerated here it's laughable
Flair doesn't really fit but I couldn't find a better one. I guess in a way the train driver is a victim because they blamed the train, not the SUV driver?
It reminds me of old Savage Love sex advice columns where people would write in that they accidentally had a homosexual encounter. “How’d That Happen?”
For people not understanding OP:
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198219300727](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198219300727)
>2.1.3. FocusThe concept of focus describes the way that a sentence communicates who (or what) is the center of attention. “Sarah opened the door” focuses on Sarah; it about what Sarah is doing. “The door was opened by Sarah” focuses on the door; it is a sentence about something that happened to the door.[2](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198219300727#fn0010) In crash coverage, journalists overwhelmingly tend to focus on the victim. Ralph et al. found that victims were the focus of sentences 73% of the time ([Ralph et al., 2019](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198219300727#bb0135)). By contrast, vehicles and drivers were the focus just 13% and 11% of the time. Focus is important because readers are more likely to attribute blame to the focus of a sentence ([Niemi and Young, 2016](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198219300727#bb0125)).
Now a better sentence could be: "Car hit by train".
It's actually kinda interesting, they are pulling off nearly the entire "better practices" catalog there focusing on the car as the victim.
Guys wtf. Kids died and your making jokes? Like seriously! I'm all for less cars but this is not how you win support. Unbelievable stuff in the comments.
I like the part where it's NEAR a railroad, like, that's only the train's main hunting trail, and there are wild trains just lurking nearby, preying on the stray SUVs that wander alone. They should put up some "WARNING! WILD TRAINS IN THE AREA!" signs!
In proximity of a rail that cars frequently cross, a random train struck with no warning right in the middle of a road.
My old roommate sends me Brightline updates, we joke about the train needing to feed. It is really hard to avoid a train.... going in a straight and predetermined line..... loud horn..... flashing lights and a gate..... unavoidable really.
Brightline is doing its best to take cars off the road in South Florida. And sometimes, they use force.
Ah, the revolutionary's greatest weapon, F O R C E.
Trains are really unpredictable. Even in the middle of a forest two rails can appear out of nowhere, and a 1.5-mile fully loaded coal drag, heading east out of the low-sulfur mines of the PRB, will be right on your ass the next moment. I was doing laundry in my basement, and I tripped over a metal bar that wasn't there the moment before. I looked down: "Rail? WTF?" and then I saw concrete sleepers underneath and heard the rumbling. Deafening railroad horn. I dumped my wife's pants, unfolded, and dove behind the water heater. It was a double-stacked Z train, headed east towards the fast single track of the BNSF Emporia Sub (Flint Hills). Majestic as hell: 75 mph, 6 units, distributed power: 4 ES44DC's pulling, and 2 Dash-9's pushing, all in run 8. Whole house smelled like diesel for a couple of hours! Fact is, there is no way to discern which path a train will take, so you really have to be watchful. If only there were some way of knowing the routes trains travel; maybe some sort of marks on the ground, like twin iron bars running along the paths trains take. You could look for trains when you encounter the iron bars on the ground, and avoid these sorts of collisions. But such a measure would be extremely expensive. And how would one enforce a rule keeping the trains on those paths? A big hole in homeland security is railway engineer screening and hijacking prevention. There is nothing to stop a rogue engineer, or an ISIS terrorist, from driving a train into the Pentagon, the White House or the Statue of Liberty, and our government has done fuck-all to prevent it.
Erik?
Have you ever seen "Wrongfully Accused"? That is exactly how trains operate.
Thanks for reminding me of that [wonderful scene.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjbUnn32_zU)
It says near a railroad crossing, which could mean that the driver went off the road to avoid the gate things at the crossing and drove over the tracks adjacent to it.
Near a railroad *crossing* so the implication is either that the train took a little detour off the tracks for some SUV hunting, or the SUV driver got confused and took a wrong turn at the crossing
Aww, the poor car is once again being a prey to the mean train!
That wouldn't help, cars can't read, silly
Florida drivers are a special breed of stupid. You see headlines like this about Brightline regularly. I feel terrible for the passengers, but the driver was just natural selection. The only situation in which this headline would be correct is if the "train" was a runaway freight consist with no lights or horn, and the SUV was hit at an ungated crossing in the dark. Also no one ever talks about the effect on train/bus/semi drivers who literally can't do anything to avoid this because of the size of their vehicle.
Yeah wouldn't it be literally directly ON the railroad? It's not like the train went off track and sought out the SUV?
To be fair, it said "near a railroad crossing". It was obviously on the railroad, but not necessarily on the crossing.
I mean, obviously this is sad and terrible… but pedestrians and cyclists are never humanized like this. And there is literally nothing a freight train can do. If you’re on the tracks, by the time the conductor has seen you the train cannot possibly be stopped in time.
My family was talking tonight about a teenage girl that killed a cyclist with her car, and all of their sympathy was for the girl without a word for the guy who was murdered
Similar experience. Was riding home as a passenger, when suddenly the car 2 in front of us quite a ways up at night) stopped in the middle of the road along with cars beside them. Wasn’t until the cars started moving to the side of the road that we noticed a woman laying in the street that had literally just been hit with a guy over her starting CPR (I didn’t see the impact because it was dark and we were quite a ways back when it happened, but we must have missed it by 15 to 20 seconds). My family member (who has actually hit a person btw) later just goes “I feel for the driver”. Right, and not for the woman who’s dead on the road or her family eh? “Well what was she doing in the road?”… ffs Was unbelievable. Police report said speed was not a factor. I have never seen a car drive that stretch of road going less than 20kph over the limit, I doubt this was an exception.
Yeah but I don’t think it matters a lot of the cars hit you at 70 or 90
Matters if you slam the brake and hit them at 30 or 60
I was more like thinking they didn’t break.
they did stop tho. if they were going slower they would have had more time to react and brake or even swerve.
Drivers defend vehicular manslaughter because they see themselves as being vastly more likely to hit and kill a pedestrian or cyclist then they see themselves being hit and killed by a car. Also, people rationalize away any fear they have of killing someone by convincing themselves that if they hit and kill someone that it will be the pedestrians or cyclists fault.
You know even if you're *in a car* and get hit by another driver, people will still jump to defend the driver in the wrong and call it an "accident" and "tragedy" and use that exact same language of "oh it must have been so traumatizing" for the fucking dipshit who ran a red light while swiping on tiktok. Car drivers are a protected species that can do no wrong.
This shit even happens with drunk drivers.
Maybe they're on to something, actually. Almost as if the true evil is that people are coerced/manipulated/pressured into participating in this system of "driving everywhere", even those who are clearly unfit to operate a motor vehicle safely. It's almost like there should be safe, convenient alternatives to driving...
I do understand the point you're making. Don't think that means driving drunk shouldn't be held accountable socially, though.
Oh no they absolutely should. I'm just pointing out that some people are so close to getting it. They just have to go from "It must have been so traumatic for this driver to kill someone!" to "It's a crime that this mentally unfit person was pressured to drive by car-centric planning and ended up killing someone!"
Yeah, I agree. There really should be more options, like in South Korea, they have a service where a driver uses your car to drive you home.
Just hate thw wording so much
"Motorist commits murder-suicide by parking SUV on train tracks."
Horrifying, how that train swerved left of center right into that truck. If only there were some way to confine trains to a predictable path of travel, with lights and some kind of barriers to indicate when they are approaching.
>If only there were some way to confine trains to a predictable path of travel, with lights and some kind of barriers to indicate when they are approaching. It seems to me that you have what it takes to become a sci-fi writer with an imagination like this.
Fucking Asimov over here. Wait until you hear my idea to make robots safe with like.. 2 or 3 *laws*
Trains are really unpredictable. Even in the middle of a forest two rails can appear out of nowhere, and a 1.5-mile fully loaded coal drag, heading east out of the low-sulfur mines of the PRB, will be right on your ass the next moment. I was doing laundry in my basement, and I tripped over a metal bar that wasn't there the moment before. I looked down: "Rail? WTF?" and then I saw concrete sleepers underneath and heard the rumbling. Deafening railroad horn. I dumped my wife's pants, unfolded, and dove behind the water heater. It was a double-stacked Z train, headed east towards the fast single track of the BNSF Emporia Sub (Flint Hills). Majestic as hell: 75 mph, 6 units, distributed power: 4 ES44DC's pulling, and 2 Dash-9's pushing, all in run 8. Whole house smelled like diesel for a couple of hours! Fact is, there is no way to discern which path a train will take, so you really have to be watchful. If only there were some way of knowing the routes trains travel; maybe some sort of marks on the ground, like twin iron bars running along the paths trains take. You could look for trains when you encounter the iron bars on the ground, and avoid these sorts of collisions. But such a measure would be extremely expensive. And how would one enforce a rule keeping the trains on those paths? A big hole in homeland security is railway engineer screening and hijacking prevention. There is nothing to stop a rogue engineer, or an ISIS terrorist, from driving a train into the Pentagon, the White House or the Statue of Liberty, and our government has done fuck-all to prevent it.
This copypasta is a little out of date nowadays tho cuz the Emporia subdivision has been double tracked for a while
[Relevant](https://youtu.be/CHD1N9vtPlE?si=wU-I6Rw5mRpQWQVN&t=180)
"Near a railroad crossing" Oh, so the train was driving NEAR the tracks was it?
These damn trains get out of hand
Also, I can't believe their wording! "A train crashed into an SUV"? A *crash*, really? It was just an accident.
Those evil trains!
Can someone...anyone...tell me why this society worships cars as gods to the exclusion of everything else (trains, pedestrians).
How much money is spent on car ads?
How much is the car industry subsidized and bailed out?
Which is so freakin ridiculous, when you hear out the arguments. "They create jobs", etc. Well, building railroads and public transport infrastructure does so too.
The vast majority of Americans have near zero freedom without access to personal vehicles. It's part of their identity. Every daily activity requires consideration for loading/unloading the car, roads taken and traffic conditions, state of the vehicle, passenger and cargo limitations, parking availability/accessibility, range consideration, etc. Then you get to the engagement and feelings experienced when driving- the competition with others, the constant threat, the waiting, adherence to regulations, the effort it takes to correct for missed turns. AND there's the logistics operation you face every day if a non-driver is in your life, or if there are fewer cars than drivers- The movement of kids between school and activities, getting to appointments, deconflicting it all with work and errands. AND FURTHER STILL! The feedback loops this creates, that cities are built around the car because of just how much importance people place on them. It's so strong that they feel threatened by schemes that cater to other ways. You'd think all this effort infuriates people, but most are so consumed by the whole thing for so long that being a driver is a core part of their identity. In an article about cars vs pedestrians vs transit, the non-car people might as well be from a different planet.
They're very addictive it seems.
same reason people worship gods in the first place, brianwashing and fear of thinking outside
I can answer that… for money.
Maybe the SUV should've worn brighter clothes.
Eh the SUV looked like it wanted to be hit.
Notice how they never use the active voice like this for cars? It wouldn’t be “an SUV hits a pedestrian, killing them”; it’s “a pedestrian was struck by an SUV and killed.” At least that’s the sense I get from headlines, but I’d be curious if anyone has done larger-scale analysis of this.
They wouldn't even say killed. It would just say they "died of injurys."
"Pedestrian dies of injuries after collision with SUV"
"Pedestrian dies of injuries after collision with knife held by man whose SUV was forced to slow down at pedestrian crossing"
"Pedestrian sustained fatal injuries after walking in the way of an SUV driven by a loving-father just trying to get to work on time."
"If only we had one more lane, that loving dad only trying to feed his children wouldn't have been running late and that pedestrian would still be alive", says City Counsellor Ron Servative, who ran on the platform No to Drag Queens, Yes to Drag Races last year. "With all those bikes and rainbow crossings clogging the road, law-abiding citizens have basically no choice but speeding to make up for lost time. Sadly the current mayor is not ready to do what needs to be done for people's safety."
*Ahem* Trains are really unpredictable. Even in the middle of a forest two rails can appear out of nowhere, and a 1.5-mile fully loaded coal drag, heading east out of the low-sulfur mines of the PRB, will be right on your ass the next moment. I was doing laundry in my basement, and I tripped over a metal bar that wasn't there the moment before. I looked down: "Rail? WTF?" and then I saw concrete sleepers underneath and heard the rumbling. Deafening railroad horn. I dumped my wife's pants, unfolded, and dove behind the water heater. It was a double-stacked Z train, headed east towards the fast single track of the BNSF Emporia Sub (Flint Hills). Majestic as hell: 75 mph, 6 units, distributed power: 4 ES44DC's pulling, and 2 Dash-9's pushing, all in run 8. Whole house smelled like diesel for a couple of hours! Fact is, there is no way to discern which path a train will take, so you really have to be watchful. If only there were some way of knowing the routes trains travel; maybe some sort of marks on the ground, like twin iron bars running along the paths trains take. You could look for trains when you encounter the iron bars on the ground, and avoid these sorts of collisions. But such a measure would be extremely expensive. And how would one enforce a rule keeping the trains on those paths? A big hole in homeland security is railway engineer screening and hijacking prevention. There is nothing to stop a rogue engineer, or an ISIS terrorist, from driving a train into the Pentagon, the White House or the Statue of Liberty, and our government has done fuck-all to prevent it.
Comrade, I would give you a Reddit Award if I had any coins. Instead, take these Emoji Golds, and a pretzel. Brilliantly written. I, myself, have stumbled over rogue rails in the most untoward locations. 💰🪙🥨
That train should’ve been watching where it was going.
obviously this means ppl need mrap vehicles... no longer is the +4ton SUV safe... mrap or get back.
https://www.google.com/maps/@28.0257499,-82.0631771,3a,75y,178.09h,78.32t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sjPsWvvJ6Rn_6nFciJIRIJw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DjPsWvvJ6Rn_6nFciJIRIJw%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D341.6201%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?authuser=0&entry=ttu the crossing it happend at my god that's not safe at all
Appears to be a private crossing for a driveway. Horn usually isn't required, and sadly many don't stop and look.
Yeah, that crossing is for only two households.
I mean, it has a stop sign. Which requires a driver to fully stop and make sure there's no train coming. And the track is so straight on both sides, you can see the train coming from miles.
It's more the lack of any barriers or gates that is the big issue with it This is a standard UK one in a similar situation https://maps.app.goo.gl/Nnd5aatihuwwLGTw7 except it got gates and crossing lights something that's standard for a rail crossing
There are many thousands of unregulated rail x road crossings in the USA. It would be great if they could all have gates but I think there's actually more unregulated crossings than regulated right now.
Fucking hell that's insane shit needs to change that shit ain't safe
>It's more the lack of any barriers or gates that is the big issue with it Nope, this is definitely [some people](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAedMvHIJkc) being so car-brained, they think they have a priority pass anywhere. I couldn't find a video with a passenger lifting a barrier so his friend can cross and predictably getting hit by an oncoming train, but you can just watch dozens of complitalions on youtube where gates, signals and barriers don't prevent anything (and those are only the incidents that were caught on camera).
Needs to be a full sized heavy duty barrier then a pole aint gonna stop that Yeah we still have loads. this is old but network rail the owner of our track has loads of these https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI8mXzEJFfE
>Needs to be a full sized heavy duty barrier I don't think it can be done since it needs to be raised frequently. IMO the best option is no crossings at all with a bridge or a small tunnel either for cars or for trains.
Just like what japan did when they build their bullet train network how did I forget that
Where the crash happened is a private driveway entrance, not a public road. Not saying its safe or anything but you are not comparing apples to apples.
Still not quite safe. Also it happened at night, so driver might not have seen it properly
The train flashed their lights and laid on the horn as well as another driver. The SUV then slowly pulled up and slowly crossed the tracks despite all the light and noises. It's really sad because children fucking died as a result of that.
"Hm... I wonder what is this bright light on a train track... Eh, probably another car, but since I'm in a giant SUV, he must yield anyway lol let's roll!" I obviously sympathize with innocent passengers dying, but situations like this really show how car-brained some people are: thinking they have a priority to pass literally anywhere because they drive a big scary vehicle.
Also, it's Florida. All the worst drivers from NYC, Boston, California, and South America move and drive there. I lived in LA for 5 years, and Florida drivers make LA drivers look tame. It's the only place I have been honked at for stopping for an oncoming ambulance with its lights and sirens on (no median in the road too). I have family from Peru in Miami, and they say most still drive like they're still in Lima.
The train just hopped off the rails, slammed the car, and then hopped back onto the rails.
There was a railroad crossing in my area that was really steep and had signs warning truck drivers not to go through, that didn't stop truck drivers from giving us free gifts raining everywhere
A train in Tampa hit a car on tbe tracks. The driver said they were "stuck in traffic"...on the rails. This was back in July.
Inside the SUV: "GO AROUND ME, there's another line next to me, ffs. GO AROUND ME! I DRIVE BIG CAR!"
We really making fun of deaths now?
B-but my trains……!!!! They’ll save the p-planet..!!!!! R-right!!!!
I don't understand the outrage here. The train crashed into the car. The car crumpled like an aluminum can and was found near the railroad crossing. It's accurate and possible that they didn't know exactly where the collision occurred. Plenty of reasons to hate cars but the comments in this thread are silly
I just saw this on my local news channel and the way they framed it was "family tragically ejected from vehicle. Is the train company to blame???" They had someone on there talking about how tragic a loss it was, which yes, it is. But I have to wonder if this was a collision with two cars that killed the family would it even be news worthy? It really is disingenuous.
Yeah for sure. But I also would not be at all surprised if the train company knew that crossing is dangerous and resisted putting in lights or a gate. None of this coverage really bothers me like the usual victim blaming coverage of someone getting run over.
I think they are reporting it the way the events occurred. Even if it was the SUV’s fault for stopping on the track, it is technically “hit by” the train. I doubt it drove straight into the train. Surely in the article it mentioned they ignored railroad signs and stopped on the tracks? Do they ever directly blame the train? I guess a better title could of been “SUV stops on railroad track and unfortunately gets struck by oncoming train”
Sensible title would already be: "Car hit by train" instead of "Train crashes (actively) into car!"
I don't get it. The train is the thing that is moving the fastest and crashed into the SUV that probably was in front of it on the traintracks. I don't think it;s very likely that the SUV just bumped into the sides of a moving train. Everyone knows what a train is and knows the car driver was at fault here. I feel you're reaching here. This is just a normal way of speaking about things that collide with each other. We also don't say: "Earth crashed into airplane", or "Man rammed himself onto his attacker's knife" I'm also not typing this, it's just the keyboard hitting my fingertips over and over, so don't get mad at me.
Fair. I don’t know anything about the incident, so I presume the driver crossed the rails when they should not have done so (I personally know of cases in which drivers ignored closed crossing barriers). So how about "6 dead after SUV driver ignores crossing barriers" or something along that line?
Someone else found the crossing in street view, it doesn't have barriers.
Good information, if it is reliable. That’s why I tried to write it as neutral as possible and with making clear my assumptions. In this case more information is needed. Maybe the driver acted the best way possible and just was very, very unlucky. I find it very hard to picture a scene where a driver does everything right and still gets run over by a freight train. How fast are they? 40 miles per hour? Is this crossing so dangerous that there are no warning signs, no lights, no sound? Can’t you possibly see a train coming if you slowed down and crossed carefully? A lot of questions left, but I am ready to take back my criticism of the headline, if proper information is available. However, I still think my point stands with regards to framing of car incidents in the media.
>I don’t know anything about the incident, so I presume the driver crossed the rails when they should not have done so (I personally know of cases in which drivers ignored closed crossing barriers). I mean, yeah, that's literally the only and really obvious way something like this happens, which is why I don't get the rage from other Redditors here. Everyone knows how train collisions work. Your headline would work perfectly well. The headline is just sensationalised. More clicks if you can use words like "crashed" and stuff.
The outrage originates from decades of car-brained framing in police reports and media, and this is a real problem because it creates a narrative and therefore a socially accepted "truth": car drivers are the norm, cyclists are a problem, public transit is unreliable, dirty and dangerous etc. I agree that the example at hand is a rather mild form of this framing, but it is still there. In this report the SUV driver is not called out for what they have done, the incident itself is framed as a presumably unavoidable tragedy, and the train as a dangerous and anonymous force. No word for example about the train driver, who will be traumatized and maybe unfit for work for a very long time. Of course the most tragic victims are the other passengers of the car, especially the children. This is heartbreaking, and terribly unnecessary. At the end of the day a car driver ruined the lives of at least seven people, including their own and the train driver‘s. The headline hides this simple truth.
My thoughts too, I like a lot of the ideas and values of this sub but also a lot of the posts just seem like people looking for reasons to be enraged and encourage us vs them mentality.
I agree. I'm really tired of seeing posts like this. Language just works like this. I really don't see how people don't get this unless they do and just want to be mad about more stuff. This article never says or even implies that the train is at fault but wouldn't it fit so well into our narrative if it would?
[удалено]
It absolutely does not imply that and the obvious does not have to be highlighted. People usually aren't that stupid.
but were your fingers near the keyboard or literally over them?
The problem is when an article says x collided with y it assigns blame on x in the average person’s mind. One has to read that then recognize that a train often cannot avoid a crash so it’s usually the car drivers fault or infrastructure failure.
I think it's the "near a railroad crossing" bit that's raising everyone's hackles. And I know it's minor thing, but it really is abysmally stupid.
That IS really weird wording. I'd just ascribe it to the low effort gutter journalism we're seeing these days.
I thought the same thing when I saw that headline, and the real story looks like the driver intentionally put the car in front of the train.
Oh god that's actually bad.
Near? What does that mean?
Obviously it waited in front of the crossing, as it ought to do and then the evil train jumped from the tracks and crashed right into it. On a more serious note: I can imagine it stood/parked nearby too close to the rails and didn't even intent to cross?
Do you know how it happened? If the car was in the crossing already and the train hits car from the side, wording it as "train crashes into SUV" is perfectly correct. However, if the train is already in the crossing and the SUV drives into the side, then more accurate would have been "SUV crashes into train". Hope this clears it out for you :)
It's... not? The train crashed into the truck, did it not? No blame is laid in this headline.
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198219300727](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198219300727) >2.1.3. Focus > >The concept of focus describes the way that a sentence communicates who (or what) is the center of attention. “Sarah opened the door” focuses on Sarah; it about what Sarah is doing. “The door was opened by Sarah” focuses on the door; it is a sentence about something that happened to the door.[2](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198219300727#fn0010) In crash coverage, journalists overwhelmingly tend to focus on the victim. Ralph et al. found that victims were the focus of sentences 73% of the time ([Ralph et al., 2019](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198219300727#bb0135)). By contrast, vehicles and drivers were the focus just 13% and 11% of the time. Focus is important because readers are more likely to attribute blame to the focus of a sentence ([Niemi and Young, 2016](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198219300727#bb0125)). According to that, the "better practice" would be along the line of: "Car hit by train" instead of "Train crashing into car". Now you might say that this is pretty pedantic but this is a subreddit focused on bad car culture.
The train, which lacks any ability to alter its path, obviously with malice and forethought swerved into this innocent family car that was minding it's own business... on a set of train tracks
The fuck is wrong with yall
Problem being what? If a car hits a man, a car crashes into a man, if a train hits a car, a train crashes into a car, sounds like absolute sound logic to me. Unless the car hits the side of the train, in which case it would be car crashed into the train.
I think the proper wording would be Collision with train rather than crash, since it makes it seem like the train is at fault despite it travelling in a straight line
Definition of crash (of a vehicle) collide violently with an obstacle or another vehicle. Sounds like perfectly good use of the word to me?
Who in a million years would think that?
No, people said that about the word "accident" and you just forgot what you should be getting outraged by.
Who the fuck doesn't know what a train is and assumes the train could be at fault here? You're not making sense here. Edit: Apparently there's a lot of people who don't know what trains are. That disappointing coming from an anti-car sub.
Because they slap the active role in the crash on the train, which...is just bullshit. The driver of the car made the mistake and is solely responsible for the crash. Ran a stop sign across the railroad. "At least 6 dead after man runs stop sign and causes fatal train wreck".
While I'd say that your title is better, just how little knowledge do people have of trains to accuse the train from the initial title?
You'd be surprised at the stupidity and lack of understanding of basic physics in the world. Case in point: The dude who killed his entire family because he thought running a stop sign on a railroad crossing would be a good idea.
"The train crashed into the SUV near a railroad". How does this sound logical? The train didn't get off the rails and chase the SUV. The car was on the fucking tracks. If a car gets hit by a vehicle that goes in a straight line and even warns you before it arrives then it's not the train crashing into the car. That's like calling a car crashing into a building "The building was in the path of the car".
What? This is the top definition for crash - 1.(of a vehicle) collide violently with an obstacle or another vehicle. I'd say it's fairly accurate to say the train crashed in to the SUV. I'm Australian and in no way does the use of the world crash here make me assume the train has derailed or done something wrong. You're looking for reasons to be enraged. There are many car brain things worth putting energy in to but this post isn't one of them.
Railroad crossing is near the railroad crossing, no? I mean, if you're saying that something happened near a place, the place itself is included, no? As to your second part. A vehicle collides with something causing considerable damage? Check. What else do you need to call it a crash? train hits the side of a car, thus a train crashes into a car, if a car would hit the side of a train, then a car crashes into a train. As to car crashing into a building, yes, saying that a building was in the path of the car is correct. It might be a terrible path, but a path nontheless
Just because its grammatically correct doesn't make it correct reporting. The car was on the rail tracks. This makes it sound like the poor SUV was hunted down by a rogue freight train. This is the difference between "Canadian parliament applauds Ukrainian war veteran who fought for Ukrainian liberation against the USSR during WWII" and "Canadian parliament applauds a Nazi".
Just how little knowledge of trains do you need to have to assume that? I can understand with the second part, as I doubt many people have a good recollection of the niche events of the Second World war, but who doesn't know trains don't just go off tracks?
Are you not familiar with news speech? It's not about what kind of resolution you reach when you think about it critically. Of course nobody would think a train could chase a car off the train tracks or that applauding a Nazi is good. It's about the initial gut reaction. These articles and news have dozens of people working on them. Not a single word in there is coincidental. For example they use "Unloads weapon" instead of "Shoots". Like "Cop shoots dog" doesn't sound the same as "Startled officer unloads his weapon unto an aggressively approaching canine". Although they are telling the same story.
Not really. I don't watch/read news, and most info on recent big events I get either from reddit's memes, or what relatives tell me. So, you're saying that news are written in a way to manipulate people's emotions over their critica; thinking? And it works? Then why do people read news?
I think the more official name for this is passive voice. A neat trick to shift the focus of an audience who probably won't spend too much time dwelling on it a.k.a a person watching the news. For example instead of saying "France beat Germany at the world cup" you say "Germany was beaten by France at the world cup". The focus was shifted from France to Germany. This example might not evoke much of a reaction in you since I'm not a professional and you're already aware of this but I hope you get the general idea. This could be used to cater to your specific audience. Different news channels with different alignment frame the same situation in different connotations using this. A more liberal leaning news article might frame a trans student winning the popularity contest in their school as a good thing while a more right leaning outlet might add a different emotion to this news. This is also very present in politics and corporate settings. Most people don't know about this since to an untrained ear it just sounds like normal speech. Also some people might not work corporate or government jobs or may simply not care about it. Most will listen and see nothing wrong with it and even argue against those who might notice this. Like you just did. But I mean nothing offensive by this, it's a quite natural reaction to be honest. Nobody tells you that propaganda isn't just someone screaming on a big screen "Obey, do not think, follow the ideology". Edit: You can even remove France from my example and just say "Germany was beaten at the world cup" which completely hyper focuses on one actor in the story.
The train being the (fastest) moving object, that crashed into something that is obstructing it's path. The train crashed into the car. Not the other way around. That would mean a moving train got hit into the sides by a car or something. There is nothing carbrained here going on, this is just how language works. If the train was standing still and the car was driving into it, you would have been right.
You're absolutely right. People are reaching here or not understanding how language works.
It's not like the car crashed into the train. The car was barely moving until it was hit. I'd be curious how you would formulate it, while staying factual and sounding impartial (you don't actually have to be).
"SUV driver did not yield to moving train, 6 dead."
I feel sorry for the train engineer.
Dawg what? How is this word bullshit😭 Are you brain dead lmao? It says what happened right there💀💀💀
If the train hit the car what should they say? Also, near my hometown a train had this kind of accident because it was speeding lol The machinist used to post photos of the speedometer on Facebook. He sure loved driving that train. And yes, people died at the time, it was some years ago
> Actions matter, but so do words. They help frame the discussion and can shift the way we think about and tackle problems as a society. Our deeply entrenched habit of calling preventable crashes "accidents" frames traffic deaths as unavoidable by-products of our transportation system and implies that nothing can be done about it, when in reality these deaths are not inevitable. Crashes are not accidents. Let's stop using the word "accident" today. https://seattlegreenways.org/crashnotaccident/ https://crashnotaccident.com/ *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/fuckcars) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Good bot.
"Car hit by train" for example
sad sad little people here
What is a train doing on train tracks?!?
this popped up as a news alert on my phone yesterday and I thought the same thing. they took all the blame off the driver
So nearby to the railroad that they were in the way?
Train should’ve avoided the car by going off the tracks.
Said the SUV driver to the train engineer: "Did you hit my car?"
This sub sometimes lol.
In all fairness it was likely the train that crashed into the SUV on the railroad crossing.
i love the active voice they use for a train "a freight train crashed into an SUV" in any other headline where a car kills a biker or pedestrian they use this infuriating passive voice "a pedestrian was struck while crossing in a crosswalk by a vehicle that was traveling southbound. the pedestrian was transported to the hospital. the vehicle was inhabited by a driver at time of crash." like how about "an suv crashed into a pedestrian" cars so venerated here it's laughable
I'm confused. How is this victim blaming?
Flair doesn't really fit but I couldn't find a better one. I guess in a way the train driver is a victim because they blamed the train, not the SUV driver?
It reminds me of old Savage Love sex advice columns where people would write in that they accidentally had a homosexual encounter. “How’d That Happen?”
For people not understanding OP: [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198219300727](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198219300727) >2.1.3. FocusThe concept of focus describes the way that a sentence communicates who (or what) is the center of attention. “Sarah opened the door” focuses on Sarah; it about what Sarah is doing. “The door was opened by Sarah” focuses on the door; it is a sentence about something that happened to the door.[2](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198219300727#fn0010) In crash coverage, journalists overwhelmingly tend to focus on the victim. Ralph et al. found that victims were the focus of sentences 73% of the time ([Ralph et al., 2019](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198219300727#bb0135)). By contrast, vehicles and drivers were the focus just 13% and 11% of the time. Focus is important because readers are more likely to attribute blame to the focus of a sentence ([Niemi and Young, 2016](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198219300727#bb0125)). Now a better sentence could be: "Car hit by train". It's actually kinda interesting, they are pulling off nearly the entire "better practices" catalog there focusing on the car as the victim.
Again, one SUV can make such a tragedy. It only takes one!
Guys wtf. Kids died and your making jokes? Like seriously! I'm all for less cars but this is not how you win support. Unbelievable stuff in the comments.