Last Updated on: 8th November 2013, 11:21 am
For some reason people tend to get a little testy whenever one of us writes up a story about some idiot getting pasted by a train. More than once we’ve had family or friends of the speed bump (I refuse to use the word victim) in question comment or email trying to come up with a good reason why what happened happened. It’s pretty well always a failure, but they try. I bring this up because for the life of me I can’t figure out why anybody associated with these oblivious fools would want to admit it, and because it never ceases to amaze me how ignorant people are and how they think that the rules of the road or the tracks or even physics don’t apply to them.
For example, here’s a quote from astoryI just read about a man and his 2 dogs being run over and killed by a freight train in Toronto. I’m not sure if I feel bad for him yet since it’s kind of light on details and circumstances could change as the investigation goes on, but from the sounds of this the answer is likely going to be no.
Burrows said it is not the first time people have been seen using the tracks for dog walking. He noted that officers had to block several people trying to access the tracks as they were investigating Monday’s incident.
Let’s look at that on a couple of different levels.
I’m not one of the dog people around here so maybe I’m not the most qualified to make a statement like this, but walking dogs on train tracks seems like a poor idea to me. They tend to be a little unruly. Then again, walking without dogs on train tracks also seems like a poor idea to me. I’ve always thought of train tracks as being roads for trains, much like roads are roads for cars and trucks and the oddbarstool.Most people don’t walk in the road because it’s unsafe, but train tracks…no big deal. Why is that? I don’t expect a decent answer to that question, but I’m putting it out there anyway.
But here’s what really gets me.
“He noted that officers had to block several people trying to access the tracks as they were investigating Monday’s incident.”
I don’t like it, but morons using train tracks for hiking trails appears to be a fact of life I’m going to have to deal with. But people choosing that particular stretch in spite of it being full of cops and emergency vehicles and crushed humans and pets? that I cannot get my head around. Just…no! Even though I know otherwise, I sometimes still have trouble believing that people can be that stupid or that insensitive or have such an inflated sense of entitlement.
“It’s illegal to be on these tracks and we don’t want people using it for this purpose at all,” he said. “I hope this serves as a warning to people that this is not the area to be doing these types of things in.”
I suggest checking the archives and not holding your breath. The very same people you’re trying to warn are the ones starring in all of the stories we’ve put up over the years, they’re just not dead yet. Anybody who can’t hear engines and whistles isn’t going to hear reason either. The best you and the rest of us can do is try to look on the bright side. For instance, no matter what, none of these people will ever be able to do something as stupid as this in the future.
