From: adrian@ntmtv.UUCP (Adrian Brandt)
Subject: Re: CalTrain engineer declared innocent
Organization: Northern Telecom Inc, Mountain View, CA
Distribution: ba
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 18:14:18 GMT

In article <wallich.722206752@pepper>, wallich@ncd.com (Ken Wallich) writes:
|> the Police are within their rights to arrest anyone they personally feel
|> may be guilty of a crime, especially in 'drug' related instances.

Sounds like an open invitation to abuse of police power.  It seems to me
they should at least have to have some probable cause or something...


|> Of course, with all the publicity surrounding every death caused by a
|> train, the police didn't want to appear negligent.

This really bugs me.  Nearly every day I read about drivers and
pedestrians being killed by motor vehicles.  There isn't usually too
much fuss about it and the world moves on.  But, when someone gets
nailed by a train (god forbid!), there is often a big to-do about it
in the media (TV, radio, newspapers), and in some cases the story gets
beaten to death (so to speak).  The incidents often get quite drama-
tic and drag on and on and on ...  The 11-year-old girl that rode
her bike around a gate to race the train and was killed in Palo Alto
last year is prime example.  There were oodles of newspaper articles
and community events and vigils, etc.  There were calls for pedestrian
crossing gates and letters to the editor and a colorful, but unofficial
memorial was built at the crossing.  Fully uniformed police officers
were posted at the crossing (and another one nearby) every morning and
afternoon for months thereafter.  (Boy, I'll bet they loved that
assignment.)  At significant cost to the City of Palo Alto and under
great pressure from some in the community the crossings were recently
"renovated" with extra pedestrian crossing gate equipment (to block the
sidewalks).  People seem to forget that trains are nice and predictable,
they don't swerve or anything (you know exactly where they are going to
go), that in this case there was *plenty* of warning that a train was
coming, and that witnesses (the friends the victim was riding with)
indicated that her last words were "I can make it".  If she was killed
by a passing car or truck under the same "I can make it" circumstances,
the incident would have been long forgotten in the space of a week or
two.  By the way, the latest development on the case I've been
describing is that the girl's mother and sister are now suing for damages
against the railroad (Southern Pacific), CalTrain (the passenger train
service), the City of Palo Alto, and a few other "deep-pockets"
defendants...  Ohhhh, those nasty trains!


|> After all, people should be able to safely linger on and about
|> railroad tracks without fear of being struck by a train.  That's
|> why they have engineers, after all.

Huh?


|> Or maybe someone just screwed up.

Yeah, the woman was in her 70s and an Alzheimer's patient.  She was
under the care & supervision of a live-in caretaker in a nearby house.
She essentially "escaped" and made for the railroad tracks.  It was
very early in the morning (bad light), and the train was moving at
about 45mph at the instant the engineer spotted the woman crouching
on the tracks with her back to the train.  All the standard honking
and braking procedures were to no avail and the woman was struck and
was killed instantly.

-- 

Adrian Brandt (415) 940-2379
UUCP: ...!ames!ntmtv!adrian
ARPA: ntmtv!adrian@ames.arc.nasa.gov