This Ford F-150 driver tempted fate and lost.
Another One
Over the years, we've seen quite a few train-versus-vehicle crashes, but shockingly enough, many of them involve Ford trucks. We can likely attribute this to the fact that there are millions of them out there on the roads as the F-Series has remained atop the sales charts for decades, but this trend is notable, nonetheless. Recently, yet another F-150 met its maker after colliding with an Amtrak train in Irvington, Alabama, according to Fox 10 News.
Training Run
The train was on a training qualification run at the time, thankfully, though three people were injured, including the driver and both of his passengers in the 2006 F-150, though all suffered only minor injuries. Things could have been much worse, but the train was only traveling as two connected engines with no passengers or cargo as it was supposed to make its way from Mobile, Alabama to New Orleans, Louisiana.
Common Occurrence
According to the news, it's fairly common for drivers to simply ignore the gate arms at the train crossing where this accident happened, and that seems to be what caused this particular crash, too. In fact, that's how the gate arm wound up being damaged after this incident occurred. "After they done fixed the track, there was another - a big truck, tow truck or whatever truck, come by," said Jessica Phipps, who witnessed the crash. "And the arm thing was coming down and hit the truck and broke it off."
Scary Incident
“It sounded like lightning crashing, to me, it did,” she added. “That’s what I heard. That’s what I thought it was.” Phipps fully expected the aftermath of what she witnessed to be much worse than it was, too. “Oh my gosh, it was freaky to me,” she said. “I mean, I thought somebody was badly hurt ‘cause a train hitting a truck. I thought they were really hurt bad. But they wasn’t.”
Chaotic Scene
Of course, this didn't mean that the scene wasn't a bit chaotic at first. “The passenger, he got out and laid on the ground, was screaming about his chest hurting,” she said. “I guess the airbag hit him in the chest. He was hollering he couldn’t breathe.”
Solid Reminder
As for the train, it was ultimately delayed by nearly two hours, but once the track was cleared, it went on about its merry way. However, this latest train versus Ford truck crash should serve as an important reminder to all of us - crossing train tracks when one of those large vessels is approaching might work out fine nine times out of ten, but it only takes one to result in total disaster.
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