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Oh I read what they write, but when they write nonsense I correct them, even when they draw silly lines on Google maps.
Note the significant difference between the silly green lines and the valid photograph that Kitten Sparkes posted showing the ACTUAL gates and the very little room left between gate and tracks.
Testimoony was that the gate finally rested on her rear window...in an SUV that is the BACK of the very very large car.
Anyone want to guess the settlement the MTA or its insurers (but likely they are self insured) will have to make. Do you think $100 million will cover it? I think that might come up short.
Yes, it will. With six dead people and a few more permanently maimed and disfigured? That's pocket change.
Public transportation agencies like the MTA have to keep megabuck coverage in liability insurance. They're going to get whacked.
Oh I read what they write, but when they write nonsense I correct them, even when they draw silly lines on Google maps.
Note the significant difference between the silly green lines and the valid photograph that Kitten Sparkes posted showing the ACTUAL gates and the very little room left between gate and tracks.
Testimoony was that the gate finally rested on her rear window...in an SUV that is the BACK of the very very large car.
Anyone want to guess the settlement the MTA or its insurers (but likely they are self insured) will have to make. Do you think $100 million will cover it? I think that might come up short.
Perspective gets skewed in photographs, hence the overhead which is the definitive perspective
Only an actual picture of a DOWN gate from above will yield any useful information regarding the driver's ability to fit her car between the gate and the passing train. I find that impossible, even laughable, knowing full well that no train fits INSIDE it's tracks but rather extends quite a bit OUTSIDE the tracks. Perhaps it MIGHT have worked with a SMART car.
An imaginary green line is just that...imaginary.
Unless she was prepared to smash through the gates or drive along the tracks to and into a field for safety, she was doomed by staying within the gates.
Except that the train was coming from the opposite track. Even if her car overhung the track, you're not going to tell me that it overhung both tracks.
She was approaching the railroad crossing from the west. Now think.....in terms of the direction the trains are traveling, railroad tracks work the same as a regular highway or street: Trains drive on the right, since this is the U.S.
Now picture a mental compass. This was a northbound train that hit her. It was driving on the northbound track. If you're heading north, west is to your left. If you're on the right hand track, that means that there's a track on your left - the track that you're not operating on.
The standard gauge is 4'-8.5''. If the gate hit the back of her car, then at the very least, even if the front of her car was between the rails, the train wouldn't have hit the car. (Like you said, the trains are wider than the distance between the rails, so they have to have some clearance so the trains don't sideswipe each other).
Except that the train was coming from the opposite track. Even if her car overhung the track, you're not going to tell me that it overhung both tracks.
She was approaching the railroad crossing from the west. Now think.....in terms of the direction the trains are traveling, railroad tracks work the same as a regular highway or street: Trains drive on the right, since this is the U.S.
Now picture a mental compass. This was a northbound train that hit her. It was driving on the northbound track. If you're heading north, west is to your left. If you're on the right hand track, that means that there's a track on your left - the track that you're not operating on.
The standard gauge is 4'-8.5''. If the gate hit the back of her car, then at the very least, even if the front of her car was between the rails, the train wouldn't have hit the car. (Like you said, the trains are wider than the distance between the rails, so they have to have some clearance so the trains don't sideswipe each other).
I don't think this is correct - the train hit her from the right - you can see it in this photo- the car was on the road on the right hand side of the road below the train tracks, at the bottom of the photo, and the photo shows the end of the train after it was stopped, which struck her car from the right:
This graphic on the NYT shows it even more clearly:
So the husband of this **** for brains twit who decided to drive onto the tracks and kill 5 people has opted to sue the MTA:
Quote:
In May, Mr. Brody filed legal documents signaling his intention to bring a wrongful-death lawsuit against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and others. The crash was not Ms. Brody’s fault, he argued, blaming the design of the crossing and the warning system, among other factors. The Commerce Street crossing is at an angle that makes it difficult for drivers to see approaching trains, Ms. Brody’s family said.
^ I was about to say the same thing. They view it as siding with the little guy versus the big bad guy (in this case it's the MTA but often it's the city or state). Interestingly, those same people on those juries complain when they have to pay higher fares, higher taxes, etc.
I don't know how he can explain the fact that she drove across the tracks after the crossing gate came down on her car.
That is the thing that is so confusing about this case. What caused her to do that?
I would have been able to believe that due to stress, she accidentally accelerated when she meant to reverse, but the witness who saw her did not describe her as acting distressed after the gate came down:
From the wiki on this:
The crossing gate struck the top of Brody's SUV before sliding down its rear and becoming stuck. Hope backed up to give her room to do the same. He instead saw Brody get out and walk to the rear, apparently trying to free it. "What struck me was how calm she was—she didn't seem to be panicking, or in a hurry at all, even though the gate was down," he said later. "She wasn't in a hurry at all, but she had to have known that a train was coming."[12] Brody looked at him, and he motioned to her to come back in his direction, although he allows that she may not have seen him due to the glare from his headlights. Brody then returned to her vehicle and, according to Hope, seemed to pause as if she was adjusting her seat belt. The train was getting closer and the situation more urgent. "The thing's dinging, red lights are flashing, it's going off," he said. "I just knew she was going to back up—never in my wildest dreams did I think she'd go forward."[11]
Instead, Brody did move forward, roughly 30 seconds after the gate came down on her car, investigators determined later.[13] The train, traveling at 58 miles per hour (93 km/h) before the accident,[14] struck the SUV on its passenger side. "There was a terrible crunching sound, and just like that, the car was gone," Hope said. "Disappeared. It happened instantly. There's no way she could have known what hit her."[12] The train was traveling at 49 miles per hour (79 km/h) when it struck the car.[14]
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