Idiot of the week
Here's a neat little scenario. You're walking on railroad tracks (are you insane??), and you suddenly hear the sound of a train coming from behind you. What do you do?
Wouldn't any reasonble person jump out of the way? Run? Hell, wouldn't you step off the track and let the train go by because they do seem to have pretty loud horns?
Apparently, this woman didn't do anything, and the poor thing was hurt. I guess she didn't know that train tracks carry trains, and you can get trampled if you don't move out of the way! And since she wasn't informed of the dangers of walking on these tracks (hello, common sense!!), she's now filed a lawsuit.
Frankly, I'm surprised she survived. Having received such minor injuries maybe she was playing "chicken," and she just doesn't want to fess up. As for her lawyer, scum of the earth.
Via Boing Boing
Comments
Although I am not arguing your questioning the logic of walking on railroad tracks, which I agree is idiotic, I wanted to point out something interesting. If you are walking away from a train and it comes at you from behind, you can't hear it. My husband is a brakeman and the railroads aren't exactly sweet. They routinely don't fix extremely dangerous problems because the cost is more prohibitive to fix them that it is to pay off the injured or dead parties families.
Posted by: kamknauss | January 20, 2005 10:11 PM
If you're walking away from it, and your back is to the train then yes I see what you're getting at, especially if the train doesn't make a noise. But in law there is something we call contributory negligence. When deciding a tort claim the jury will look at both parties and decide what percentage each side was negligent. If she was caught in the tracks due to the railroad's maintainers then there's a huge percentage there. She's negligent for walking on the railroad tracks.
Posted by: yasmín | February 2, 2005 9:15 PM