Why do collisions involving Brightline trains continue?

Brightline has long been the center of safety concerns since launching service from West Palm Beach to Miami in 2018.

[udrtydog]

Question: "Why is Brightline involved in so many crashes?" Answer: BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE STUPID!

[freddielemonheadsimmons]

Gotta love how these tragedies are portrayed. 100% not the train’s fault

[railstoruin]

Serious question: If I stick a fork in a power outlet and die, whose fault is it: The fork manufacturer or the electric company? Why do some talk about trains like this?

[VersusHearts]

Now give us the story on how many car fatalities have happened in Florida to make us scared of cars. I am waiting...

[BWCSoFlo]

Its not Brightline fault. People are very stupid.
They see the gate arms down and still decide to cross while its down.
Also, they see one train pass and think no other train coming. Then they try to go pass the gate arms and get hit by another train.
There needs to be more education on this topic with the public, or police need to give people citations or fines when they see people passing the gate arms while its down.

I see this happens all the time.

Also if there is no more passing trains, but the gate arms still down. The public needs to be more educated on who to call to quickly fix that issue.

[pplebun]

I’m glad the comments section is calling out the hypocrisy of the media and how much to you wanna bet someone paid them to try and blame Brightline for being the one causing the accident and not the idiot driving around the gates?

[dukeofkool]

The fire crew went around the crossing gate, thinking they could beat the Bright Line train, period. They obviously did not. No excuses. A fire crew is of no use to anyone, if they can't safely reach the scene. Before you criticize me, I'm a retired Firefighter of 40 years on the job.

[Coloribus]

Brightline would never have this kind of record if it wasn’t for the people who thought it was a good idea to go in front of a HST.

[HuntsTrainsOfficial]

Brightline is not responsible at all. The issue is the degrading of the human brain that is causing people to not think. Rail safety needs to be taught in school along with some common sense.

[JMVX]

This is the result of multiple generations being unexposed to passenger rail.
You only have yourselves to blame.

You can eliminate the crossings. But how many folks willing too forgo their property for massive overpasses providing minimum 25’ vertical clearance above the rails?
And do this for as many crossing as possible, and divert traffic to these designated routes?
Pedestrian subways or overpasses can be provided at locations where former crossings existed?

Do you like this idea?
Or it is easier to STOP LOOK and not get killed.

This is a multi generational problem that unfortunately the train is going to continue.
The historic FEC mainline cannot fully be grade crossing eliminated and the population has exploded substantially since the line was single tracked and passenger service discontinued.
People got very used to the slower, less frequent, very long freight trains.
And this passenger service has become a culture shock for an inpatient driver or pedestrian.

Y’all folks there should be enjoying this experience not getting picked off by the trains.
It’s a nice service you got, Don’t ruin it.

[jacobpowell]

Florida had 3400 auto related fatalities last year. I don’t think the train is the problem.

[terryaltherr]

On the one hand, when people wonder why so many billions upon billions of dollars are being spent just to do grade separation for California's High Speed Rail, this is why (also, those trains will be 2-3 times faster than Brightline).
On the other hand, it's comical how many people disregard railroad crossing signals in this country. It's easy to say this is a Floridian problem but something tells me such stupidity could easily be replicated in other parts of the US.

[Tiredoldchannel]

Last time I checked trains can only run on train tracks

[richardjayroe]

You do realize that the crossings aren't controlled by them right? They can't just build a bridge or underpass. That has to be done by the city not the company

[Conn]

Long Island Railroad has grade crossings all over the place, is densely populated, and collisions are very uncommon.

[rudivandoornegat]

Safety for stupid people is more expensive. Because what you need for those people are underpasses.
Europe did construct them over decades, little by little.

[j-bird]

After driving in Florida for a while, I'm amazed there arent more crashes involving Brightline! Florida's drivers are on another level of stupid

[maz]

Literally nobody calls it the death train

[wolfpacva]

Dont blame the trains blame the idiot drivers that dont obey the law.

[Jytami]

Its actually very easy to not die on train tracks. Just don't drive over them when signal's red. Look ahead for traffic, do not stop on the rails, even if you get stuck just drive through the barriers