You know, trains are pretty predictable. They don't screw around. Highly focused -- driven, you might say. They run ON railroad tracks, not "anywhere near" them.

@1
Awesome

They always make a big deal out of these train vs human things, both because they are so preventible, and because they mess so much stuff up: Freight and passenger schedules, auto traffic in the area of the wreck, etc.

What's weird to me is the length of time it takes a coroner to come out, look at the body, and say "yup. He's dead all right. And that trains the one that did it." Somtimes it takes six or seven hours.

Jeez Dan, 5 posts before 10am? You are shot out of a cannon today. Perhaps you are excited for slog trivia this evening?

#1, talking on a cell phone "anywhere near" the tracks clearly leads to aimlessly wandering onto them.

@1, but if trains could run OFF their rails; then life would be much much fuller for all of us!

It seems like you'd have to work hard to be hit by a train in 2008 -- it seems so anachronistic, like being run down by a zeppelin...

Natural selection illustrated

In defense of the dailies, they aren't overlooking the real, albeit rogue-wavish, possibility of a Crazy Train.

One would think the road, with its much more randomly traveling vehicles, would pose the greater risk.

Why do they say "killed by a train"? Shouldn't it say, "killed by not paying attention"? Is there some kind of rule in journalism that mandates this kind of blame game?

I can almost understand the first one getting killed as she was just crossing. But the recent one, yikes.

@9 - All Aboard!

Aye aye aye aye ...

I think the cell phone part isn't the issue, walking on tracks is the issue. It's something easy to blame but really seems unrelated these people could have just as easily been listening to their Ipods or reading US weekly or chewing gum. It simply adds some shock/scare value and reminds people to never talk on a cell phone. it's just like the headline of a teen who was raped or killed reading "Murdered teen was an active Myspace.com user"

Can ya here me now? Technology racks up another one. Last year it was a car load of teens with the driver so busy texting that she didn't see the semi coming the other way. Now 2 people yakking on cell phones in front of speeding trains. If it could only be the idiot next to me at the movies, who spent half the movie texting. Your time will come texting boy! Your time will come. Bwaahhahaha!

Fnarf, you are on fire this week.

On July 1, 2008, it will be illegal to talk on your cell phone while driving.

Heads up - you've been warned.

Fun game:

Notice how when there is a motorcycle death, the headline usually says "Cyclist dies" or "Rider died after accident". While if it is a car or a train or a plane it is "Driver killed" or "Pedestrian killed by train".

To be killed is to die violently, unnaturally. Something that isn't expected or supposed to happen. When you simply die, it's like "die of natural causes" or "die of old age" (you never say "killed by old age").

The papers have decided that motorcyclist deaths are an ordinary, expected thing, as unsurprising as the falling of the rain. Cell phone talkers are "killed" though. Go figure.