Stupid Is as Stupid Does

There’s stupid and then there’s Christine Barnes.

Barnes, 30, lives in Elmwood Park and was one of the imbicles who stopped on the tracks at a railroad grade crossing on Grand Ave. the night before Thanksgiving. An outbound Metra express train rounded a curve at about 70 miles per hour and slammed into six of the cars on the tracks, throwing those into five other cars. In all 11 cars were destroyed. No one was killed, although Barnes and a few others ended up in the hospital.

Investigators quickly determined the Metra engineer did everything he could have and that two factors contributed to the accident: the design of the intersection and the fact that the drivers stopped on the tracks.

The intersection is bad. The tracks cross Grand Ave. at a diagonal, meaning there’s more track across Grand than if the tracks crossed perpendicular to the street. Additionally, there is a stop light nearby that can cause traffic to back up past the tracks. Which is why the village or Metra or the railroad that runs that line, perhaps all three, paid for giant yellow signs that hang over Grand Ave. warning drivers of the long crossing and admonishing them not to stop on the tracks.

Stories on Friday and Saturday in both the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times, as well as on local TV, clearly conveyed the frustration police, Metra and crash investigators felt. Of all the steps that could have been taken to prevent the accident, the most basic and least expensive was the exercising of just a little common sense on the part of the drivers. Simply put, they shouldn’t have stopped on the tracks.

So, of course, Barnes stopped on the tracks. That’s dumb enough, but what garns her the Gold Star for Stupidity in this case are her comments in Sunday’s Chicago Tribune. In the story, by Lolly Bowean, Barnes makes clear she takes no blame. The light should have changed or the train should have stopped. But she has no culpability for stopping on the tracks. Barnes told Bowean she is tired of officials blaming the drivers. “What do they think,” she asked. “We really want to be hit by a train? I could have died.”

Of course, no one ever suggested the drivers stopped on the tracks because they wanted to be hit by a train. They’re saying the accident wouldn’t have happened if the drivers had not stopped on the tracks. They’re saying the drivers stopped on the tracks because they failed to use common sense.

They’re saying Barnes and her fellow drivers are idiots.

Every one of those drivers should be ticketed and should have their licenses suspended. But you can bet they’ll sue Metra and the village and the Illinois Department of Transportation and anyone else they can think of in a desperate, flailing attempt to assign responsibility for this accident anywhere except where it rightfully belongs – with the drivers.