Battousai

Well not exactly a repost :p

I read the previous post where the little girl was still injured was there another one with this updated sad news?

MazdaRich

First of all I wonder how the girl got killed since she was on the opposite side from where the train hit. Must have snapped her neck or something, or she wasn't buckled in. The 8 is an incredibly safe car, as you can see the impact would have killed the driver in most cases.

The other thing is that trains move really fast in that part of S. Florida--all of those roads have crossing gates as well. You generally don't have to wait more than about 1-2 minutes for a train to pass, and they are a very regular occurrence along Dixie Hwy.

OTOH trains are pretty common in Colorado and they move at like 15 mph. It's pretty annoying--I'll keep this in mind next time I want to run a gate.

MrJynx

the car didn't look excessivly damaged.. But if the girl was not wearing a seatbelt, i dunno.. that's iffy for me.. Seatbelts are an ABSOLUTE, i don't care what the person thinks but if you sit in my car you will wear a seatbelt.. I know most people in their mid 20's dont seem to care or think they are cool, all i ahve to say is take a simple physics class.. car going at 60mph, stops dead in less then a second, your body is still going 60mph which equals a mess..

My car won't move unless everyone is wearing a belt!


MrJynx

1.3L

Huge, yes. Slow, not necessarily.

The large size makes trains appear deceptively slow and that's likely what fools some people into thinking they can beat the train at the crossing.

1.3L

Aratinga

My prediction:

The driver will claim that his brand-new, still-has-dealer-paper-plates RX8 stalled on the tracks; when he attempted to re-start it, it would not start. It was flooded. It is, therefore, completely MAZDA's fault that his stepdaughter is dead, and he and his wife will now attempt to sue the pants off of Mazda.

Let's just hope anyone stupid enough to go around the barriers is also too stupid to do a little research on stalling/flooding in RX-8s, and that his attorney is equally as clueless.

brothervoodoo

If only Cochran would have held out another couple months I think this guy would have a case...

XDEEDUBBX

dam thats sad..=(

Hunter

she was probably in the back and maybe behind the driver

my 9 year old son, who is huge, still rides in the back.

As somebody who's buried a child, I can't imagine the guilt that is going through the parents' minds right now.

Hunter

kachud

This is such a shame.

cortc

There is nothing as sad or tragic as the loss of a child and especially when it is due to the stupidity of someone who is supposed to be protecting them...

Aratinga

I've had that little girl in my mind all day today, since I read about it this morning. She was the driver's stepdaughter; I'm wondering what that child's biological father (assuming he's still around) is going to do to that idiot stepdad. If I were that girl's parent, I'd be making that idiot wish he'd died in the wreck right about now.

DrKillJoY

** UPDATE **

Driver in crash with train charged


Girl, 9, killed by `reckless' act, police say

A Boca Raton man whom police said acted "with reckless disregard for human life" when he drove into the path of a train was charged with the death of his stepdaughter, 9.

Scott Wynkoop, 40, will appear before a Palm Beach County judge today to enter a not guilty plea and to have his bond set, said family spokesman Kenneth Lipman.

Lipman, called Wynkoop's arrest "shocking."

Boca Raton police charged Wynkoop with manslaughter by culpable negligence and vehicular homicide on Friday. He was arrested at his office in the 300 block of Yamato Road and was not given a chance to surrender, Lipman said.

Wynkoop drove around a lowered railroad-crossing gate near the intersection of North Dixie Highway and Hidden Valley Boulevard on May 17 when a freight train slammed into the left rear corner of his Mazda RX-8. The car hit a railroad crossing box and concrete battery box, police said.

"There was no way the Mazda was going to make it across," James Scala, who was waiting on the other side of the track, told police.

Scala held Wynkoop's stepdaughter, Samantha Rosales, until Boca Raton Fire-Rescue arrived and took the girl to Delray Medical Center where she was pronounced dead the next day.

The Palm Beach County medical examiner determined that Rosales died from blunt traumatic injuries she suffered during the crash.

Florida East Coast Railway officials determined that the crossing gates and lights worked, and police said the train entered the intersection with its whistle blowing.

Lipman said the intersection was poorly designed.

"It was a tragedy waiting to happen," Lipman said.

Maria Wynkoop told police that her husband was picking up their daughter from a day-care center at the Advent Lutheran Church, 5001 NE Fourth Ave., in Boca Raton, and that he had no reason to hurry.

Lipman said Friday that Maria Wynkoop completely supports her husband.

"One can only imagine that you lose your daughter and your husband is arrested with no notice ... you can just imagine the horrors that Mrs. Wynkoop is experiencing," Lipman said

chrism

i just hope he fries for his stupidity

Along4TheRide

Watched a television program awhile back, and it was pretty sobering. It was about trains in general, and one segment was on how people (stupid ones, that is) try to outrun the train at the crossing. The conductor said something that has always stuck in my mind. He said that the weight ratio between a train and an automobile and the weight ratio between a car and an empty aluminum can is almost the same.

Think of that the next time you happen to accidently hit a can, or when you think that you can outrun that train.

FoxTypeR

How exactly is this "poorly designed" and a "tragedy waiting to happen" when the gates were down, the lights were on, and the train was sounding it's whistle? Perhaps he meant his client was "poorly designed for such a terribly complex and confusing intersection". Hell, I'd hate to see what this guy would say about a 4-way traffic light situation, I mean come on, there's no crossing gates or whistles blowing, only lights, clearly, THAT is poor design.

mmats69

I happen to work for the railroad so I have seen this kind of stuff first hand. Your standard road unit (6 axles) weighs around 200 tons or better. To give you a weight ratio of a locomotive to a car you would compare your car to a coke can. It never ceases to amaze me how people will pull right out in front of the train. In an emergency application of the brakes, it still takes nearly half a mile to come to a complete stop, and most of the time you hit people at full speed and cannot react until it is too late. I've been working with Operation Lifesaver to try to get this message out to everyone, especially young folks. More and more teenagers are dying at crossings, most of them being only 16. It is a sad situation that has been talked about here. Next time the gates come down, just wait.

Race a train, buy the farm. Look. Listen. Live. Operation Lifesaver.

StewC625

I feel bad for the daughter, but if the stupid idiot had been also killed (maybe he was... I didn't read the story) then he got what he deserved.

Anyone doing that, street racing, bridge or "hump" jumping, or a variety of other stupid vehicular tricks have no one to blame but themselves when things go badly. Like the dipwad that "jumped my RX-8" that was posting last week. Whatta dope.

spork

Ok, just coming to work today I'm surprised more people don't die from stupid train accidents.

I saw one guy stop right over TWO tracks and wait there for a light to turn red. The rail comes through every 10 minutes on each side so probably something like once every 5 minutes. Traffic was packed from him to the street light and there were cars behind him. If a train/rail came while the light was red, he would've taken the full brunt of impact. The light did turn green a minute or so before the train came though.

Then I watched as two other people parked parts of their cars over the tracks, but at least these people had an out... the left lane was open and they left themselves enough room to turn ot the left lane and took it after realizing that it probably wasn't a good thing to stop on top of tracks.

It was just the first guy who made me think "aw, man I'm going to see someone die today."

KYLiquid

pretty much the only way to get hit by a train in a car now is if the gates/lights didnt work, or your car (for some reason) got stoped/stuck on the tracks....then the gates came down.

Why people drive around rail road xing is beyond me....i still slow down, partly the fact that there is always the danger of a train coming...and partly cause they are so damn bumpy...i prefer to slow down, look, then cross them.

I wonder why she was killed, from the photo, the pass side is in tack and both doors are open, the train hit the drivers side, so she must have been sitting behind him...thats also strange.

I dont have kids, but i do have little cousins and stuff, when i ride with them, the ride up front in the pass seat (if they are big enough) or in the back pass seat, so I can look over my shoulder to see them....never right behind me...strange.

I also wonder if maby seatbelt/no seatbelt played a factor in this. Looks like if she was on the pass side she would have been fine.

Aseras

if the gates are down, i'm staying put, if there's no gates or the light just came on and I don't see the train I'll blow right through.

cas2themoe

****, I stop and look even if the lights arent on and theres no train coming. You just never know, better safe than sorry!

midlifer

I was a locomotive engineer for a freight RR for 13 years and I can't tell you how many times people race the trains. It's amazing how someone will disregard 20 MILLION pounds (100 coal cars at 200,000 pounds each) just to save 120 seconds at a crossing.

Bob