A Train of Thought

Just over the last couple of days we've seen two notable local news stories about vehicle collisions involving local commuter trains. One was a fatal collision involving a pedestrian and a Blue Line train in Vernon; the other was a much less serious incident involving a test of the an extension to the Expo Line which led to a incident involving a semi big-rig and a light rail train in Santa Monica. As  Los Angeles personal injury attorneys, we obviously work a great deal with the victims of accidents and their families, so this is obviously a matter of direct concern.

Serious train injuries and fatalities can have a number of causes, but it seems as if most of the worst ones could have prevented by a little common sense on the part of either a member of the public or a rapid transit employee. The most egregious example of the latter might be the 2008 texting-related crash of Metrolink and Union Pacific trains in Chatsworth, which killed 25 and injured many more. More commonly, we hear about cases nationwide where individuals seem to find themselves at railway crossings in circumstances that seem hard to understand. As personal injury attorneys, we know there are cases where people are clearly foolishly putting themselves in harm's way, with the result often being a fatality. However, there may also be times when confusing signage and other issues may actually be at least partially responsible for drivers and others being in places where they clearly have no business being.

Personal injury law can be a highly complex matter but one thing is clear -- if drivers, pedestrians, and rapid transit employees all thought through their actions in a careful manner, far fewer of these often tragic train collisions would pop up on our daily news feeds.