While the Link rail line has yet to even officially open, a train/car collision has already occurred earlier tonight. KIRO TV has a slideshow of the accident involving a light rail train and a little Toyota Yaris in the at-grade portion of the route along MLK Way at South Dawson Street. Almost certainly, this won’t be the last.
7 thoughts on “First light rail train vs. car incident tonight at MLK and Dawson”
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I was wondering what the heck was going on there. I thought maybe there had been a collision, but then I thought, already? — no way!
Any clue as to what happened? Was a traffic signal ignored? I’d like to think I could avoid getting smashed by being careful on the yellows.
I think I caught in passing that it was an illegal left turn.
You “caught in passing?” Frankly you shouldn’t post information if you’re not even going to read it correctly. It’s obvious you’re anti Light Rail.
That aside, the driver made an illegal left turn – against the light by the way – over the tracks and was hit. If it had been a car instead of a train, it wouldn’t even be news because it would be one very foolish driver getting t-boned because of her own inattention.
If you want the full story, just read it in the Times.
So, if you are going to make an illegal turn, look first for trains. That is going to cost more than the price of the ticket for the illegal turn. Hope the driver is OK, possibly a bit of sense knocked into her.
Katherine, you’re wrong about my position regarding Light Rail.
The Times story you mentioned is here: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009064531_weblightrail15m.html
I replied while on the bus, and was unable to bring up the Times website or even find it in a Google News search at the time to confirm where I’d read it was an illegal left turn.
Katherine, if you think the operators of this blog are anti-light rail, you haven’t been reading here very closely. We could suggest that “you shouldn’t post information if you’re not even going to read it correctly.”
At the time this story was posted, we didn’t know yet what the cause of the accident had been (though we were pretty sure the car driver was at fault).
It’s not anti-light rail to note that there will be many more accidents. Why? Because people are stupid and do stupid things. I don’t think it’s possible to make sure that accidents will never happen. Even if the rail was separated-grade, there would still be accidents.
I drive right by this intersection all the time and it is VERY WELL MARKED, you really have to be a bit spaced out to miss all of the signs. They are just in testing mode now but when I was down there the other day they had a train whizzing by every few minutes.