(Source: www.phys.org, September 28, 2017)
NEW YORK — The damsel in distress, tied up and left on the railroad tracks, is one of the oldest and most clichéd cinema tropes. Browsing YouTube late at night, Fermilab Technical Specialist Derek Plant found that this clichéd crime has connections to real, contemporary accidents that happen far more than they should. The videos all begin the same way: a large vehicle—a bus, semi or other low-clearance vehicle—is stuck on a railroad crossing. In the end, the train crashes into the stuck vehicle, destroying it and sometimes even derailing the train. According to the Federal Railroad Administration, every year hundreds of vehicles meet this grisly fate by trains, which can take over a mile to stop.
Full story: www.phys.org