TRAIN: It's not worth your life

ow do you get hit by a train? It’s almost an impossible feat if you think about it. The train crew are not on their cell phones, they are not texting, don’t have the radio on, not playing with iPads and have not been drinking alcohol. If you also consider that the locomotive is 16 feet tall and 12 feet wide and has three headlights that will burn your eyes right out and a horn that turns your brain to mush then train collisions with cars and people should never occur.

Apparently, it’s not that hard as in the past few months its occurred twice in Post Falls alone. People blindly pass over railroad tracks or around railroad signals when trains are approaching and are seriously killed or injured and more often than not also have an additional passenger in the car such as a child who has absolutely no control over what’s going to happen.

Unlike a vehicle on the road, the train goes where the rail takes it. It will not swerve to miss you or stop in the nick of time, instead it will shove your car along in front of it while the occupants are still inside for the next 1/2 to 1 mile down the tracks as it comes to a stop.

As the old phrase says “Haste makes waste,” in cases such as this, the waste is the vehicle driver who failed to stop for the train… it’s just not worth your life or the lives of others to beat that train.

DAN MATTSON

Post Falls