Discussion for article #233604
I’m sorry, but a formerly unknown pet peeve of mine has arisen. This is the second headline I’ve read in the last week about a train striking another vehicle and technically that’s correct, but the train couldn’t strike that vehicle unless said vehicle was on the train’s tracks. My compassion for some reason is always with the train, not the people standing on, sitting on, running on the train track.
I just had to get that off my chest. Soapbox is now put away.
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They have occasional accidents here in Germany, but the most of them are caused by idiots somehow squeezing past the gates, or on rural Farm-to-Market roads and hit by regional trains. What they do here is lower the gates 2 - 3 minutes prior to the arrival of any train, and the gaps are minimal. ICE (Inter City Express) trains have full right of way (no crossings) so they can zip along at 150+mph.
The gates are lowered here as well. Weil Sie sind deutsch, Sie kennen nicht das viele Bahnübergänge haben keine Tore. So, there are many accidents due to idiots thinking that they can beat the train. The real psychological problem is that the brain does not perceive that trains are going fast. Since they are big, they do not obey the same visual rules that cars do which our brains use to determine speed.
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Ami Ex-pat… 