"Alleged" drunk mistakes railroad tracks for street...

[Pilgrim]

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2011/may/25/driver-follows-tracks-until-confronted-by-train/

An alleged drunken driver mistook railroad tracks for a roadway early Sunday in southwest Spokane County.

Miles D. Matthews, 43, jumped from his 2002 Mercury Mountaineer just before a train hit it head-on about 2 a.m. near Cheney-Spokane and Scribner roads in Marshall, the Spokane County Sheriff's Office said Tuesday.

Matthews had turned onto the railroad tracks and tried to drive toward Spokane with one tire on a rail and the other in the rocky roadbed, according to a news release.

The Mountaineer became stuck on loose rock, and Matthews tried moving the vehicle until a southbound freight train approached.

The train knocked the SUV backward into a culvert shelter made of railroad ties and rock. The crash totaled the vehicle and caused minor damage to the freight engine, but no one was injured.

Matthews, of Spokane, was booked into jail on a drunken driving charge. He also was issued an infraction for stopping/parking on railroad tracks and failure to provide proof of insurance.

What is there to say?  Occasionally Darwin's laws fail.

[Barklessdog]

Amazing that no one was injured. I guess its typical, the drunk always walks away unharmed, where the innocent ones die.

[TBird1958]

Ahhh...............Spokanistan, say no more 

[gweimer]

My cousin was hit head-on by the Skokie Swift in Chicago years ago, when he tried to drive around the gates while drunk.  The jeep he was driving was pushed off the tracks and he was thrown from the vehicle, and he lived to tell about it.

[Freuds_Cat]

My small town has the main east west rail line running through the middle of it. The main street is parralell on the bottom side of a hill and the main residential part of town is on the higher side. A young guy who was (and still is) a regular in one of the pubs in the main street was too drunk to make it home one night and fell asleep on the tracks. Long story short, he lost his legs from just above the knees. He is still a regular at that pub and the joke around town is that now he isn't just leggless every saturday night. He takes it in good humor.

[Denis]

I find it amusing that an SUV called "Mountaineer" became stuck on loose rock.

[Pilgrim]

I find it amusing that an SUV called "Mountaineer" became stuck on loose rock.

Agreed. That's onna counta it's a grandiosely named version of da Ford Exploder.