Monday, November 16, 2015

Oh, It's a Monday

This morning on the way to work, I was sitting at a railway crossing (mostly commuter trains, but the occasional Amtrak as well). The gates were down for well over 15 minutes. People started turning around, which you could do because no traffic was driving on the other side of the street. And then they started driving around the gates and through an active train crossing. People, I don't care that you're late for school or work. I don't care that you're impatient. I don't care that the gates may be malfunctioning. In the story of train vs car, the car always loses!

Accident in March 2013 in the UK.
Looks like a motorcycle, but it's a car.
There were a couple of times when cars were coming around the gates on both sides of the tracks and having to do a little tango in the middle. I even heard a train whistle while this was happening! (I was going to be very angry if I had a front row seat for this accident.) And then the school bus behind me went through! I couldn't tell if there were kids on the bus, nevertheless. Poor judgement, she should not have been driving a bus. I texted my boss to let her know I'd be late. Called the day care to reserve a spot for Stellie just in case they filled up before I could get there. And then called the police who had already had a report. I had been there for a good 25 minutes at this point. (And I never did see the police.) A really tense start to the morning!

But you came here for the stitching not the complaining!
Making progress!

11 comments:

Linda said...

What a scary thing to witness Nikki. Your making great progress on the stocking.

Linda

jhm said...

I hope you got the bus # and report them. It is illegal for a school bus driver to do that, either the bus has kids in it or not. School bus drivers scare the hell out of me - not all are responsible people. I've seen too many problems with my kids.

JHM

Julie said...

Some drivers!
Great progress on the stocking

Robin said...

How upsetting and what a way to ruin a morning...even without a train on car crash. People really don't engage their brains do they? And what kind of example are they setting for their children along the way. Unless you have the kidney that needs to get to the hospital for an immediate transplant there is nothing that important. Sorry you day started on such a bad note.

Kevin said...

Your stocking looks great! Are you using the Perle Cotton for yours, or is this stitched on higher count linen?
Agree with your comments on the train crossing situation! Very risky taking a chance and putting lives in danger like that.

Susan said...

Yikes! My husband worked for major railroads for over 35 years. One of them had "Safety First" as their motto and all employes had safety drilled into them. By extension, my children and I got an education on rail safety. First and foremost was that you can't outrun a train. But as a tour guide recently told us, the mother of stupidity is always pregnant. (She was referring to some public works expenditures in Rome but this is a universal truth, don't you think?). I do hope you reported the school bus driver!

Beth W said...

I love when people clearly have the mentality of "I'm right and the rest of the world is wrong", which you can see when they break legal AND common sense rules like this. I mean...turn around, find an alternate route, but don't endanger your life and the lives of those around you. Because you aren't the most important being in existence. You just aren't.
Also, WTF cops?! Could've made a mint in tickets if they'd shown up.

Bea said...

That's insane! Do they really think they can best a train?

Good progress on the stocking. Love the colours!

Robin in Virginia said...

The stocking is looking great. Sorry you had a rough start to the day! I am glad that no one was hurt or that an accident occurred. Shame on that bus driver.

riona said...

There are several street level crossings in my area but no car and train collisions in recent memory. This is amazing since the trains running on this West Hudson line are mostly freight trains and take forever to pass. The locals know to turn around and back track to a bridge crossing about three minutes south. Still, I can't imagine why anyone would take the insane risk of ignoring the gates and flashing lights. Time is a precious commodity but hardly more precious than life.

Jo who can't think of a clever nickname said...

Half the letters to our local paper are about the length of time the level crossing barriers are down for! I don't know how they'd cope with the long trains you have. They are shut for a maximum of five minutes twice an hour and people get so cross about the tailbacks. Which are basically caused by too many short journeys with only one person in a car.