Daisuke Wakabayashi, New York Times:
Following directions from Google Maps on a smartphone last year, Jose Alejandro Sanchez-Ramirez turned a Ford truck, hauling a trailer, where he thought the app was telling him to go. But he ended up stuck on the railroad tracks at a poorly marked California crossing.
Soon after Mr. Sanchez-Ramirez abandoned the truck, a commuter train barreled into it, killing the engineer and injuring 32 others.
And:
On Monday, after investigating the crash for almost two years, the National Transportation Safety Board issued a safety recommendation asking technology and delivery companies to add the exact locations of more than 200,000 grade crossings into digital maps and to provide alerts when drivers encounter them.
Apple, Google and Microsoft have promised to add rail crossing data to their maps.
Having the data in mapping applications could be useful (have to see the implementation), but I don’t see how it would have helped in this case. The street view picture is from May 2016 so infrastructure may have changed, but I don’t think so. Divided paved road with overhead lights and gates–that’s hardly poorly marked. I think driver fatigue is the culprit. To get stuck means he had to have driven over the median or curb or driven off the roadway.
It sounds like there is plenty of blame to go around here.
– The crossing was inadequately marked, and the subject of previous accidents.
– Did the driver do all he could to warn anyone on the train his truck was on the tracks, e.g., did he call 911?
– Apple & Google have their work cut out for them, with their respective map apps, to ensure they are up to date.
–The NTSB should find ways to incentivize a closer working relationships with Apple & Google. Their maps are the default for so many people.