Metrolink Accidents Lawyer and Your Legal Rights
Metrolink has a much greater fatality rate than most larger systems in the country. While Metrolink’s ridership is the seventh-largest in the nation among commuter rail systems, it has the second-highest number of deaths, behind only New Jersey Transit, whose trains travel six times as many miles as Metrolink trains on a yearly basis and carry five times as many passengers. An analysis of the Federal Railroad Administration revealed that in one six-year period, 39 out of 61 passenger fatalities across the nation involved Metrolink trains. Metrolink disasters in Chatsworth in 2008 and Glendale in 2005 accounted for nearly all of the 39 deaths. From 1998 to 2008, Metrolink has had 99 fatalities—more than other commuter rail systems with nearly eight times the ridership.
There are many causes of Metrolink accidents: collisions with other Metrolink commuter trains or with freight trains they share the track with; inattentiveness of the engineer or conductor; failure to see or inadequate or inoperative signals warning of another train on the tracks; derailments due to poorly maintained tracks; faulty maintenance of the train; and non-compliance with safety standards.
Passengers are more likely to be killed or severely injured in a crash in which the Metrolink train is in “push” mode. In traditional “pull” mode, the locomotive engine is at the front of the cars. In push mode, the engine is at the rear and a “car cab” carrying passengers, with the engineer in a small area at the front, is in the lead. This cab car has earned the nickname “coffin car,” for its lack of protection in head-on collisions with other trains.
On a January morning in 2005, a man who claimed he was suicidal drove his Jeep Grand Cherokee onto the tracks in Glendale and doused the interior of the SUV with gasoline. At the last minute, however, the man changed his mind and jumped from the vehicle, leaving the gasoline-drenched SUV parked in the middle of the tracks. Moments later, a Metrolink commuter train being operated in “push” mode struck the SUV and derailed. The train hit a parked freight locomotive, then collided with another Metrolink commuter train traveling in the opposite direction. Because it was being operated in the “push” mode, this meant that a passenger car bore the brunt of the initial impact. The crash resulted in a total of 11 deaths and 180 people being injured. (The driver of the SUV was charged and convicted of 11 murders, and was sentenced to 11 life terms in prison.)
