Fifth Street at Las Posas Road Now the Deadliest Rail Crossing in Ventura County
April 21, 2016, the Fifth Street at Las Posas Road grade crossing in Camarillo, California regained the title of “Deadliest Rail Crossing
in Ventura County”. Around 6 PM, Garrett Vongunten, 26, piloted his
2015 Harley Davidson motorcycle south on Las Posas Road toward Fifth
Street. On the rear seat, Nadya Unger, 23, rode as his passenger. With
the late afternoon sun in their eyes, they approached the railroad
crossing at an undetermined speed.
At
4:33 p.m. that day, Metrolink Train No. 117 had departed Los Angeles
Union Station, heading toward its final destination at the East Ventura
Station. Near 6:00 PM, the train approached Las Posas Road from the
east at normal speed, which can be as high as seventy miles per hour.
If the traffic control system operated properly at the grade crossing,
the approaching train would activate warning bells, flashing lights and
crossing gates to warn vehicular traffic of an oncoming train.
According to Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) guidelines, the
rail crossing gates should be down at least twenty seconds prior to a
train crossing Las Posas Road.
For reasons that included
impairment from unspecified drugs and possible excessive speed,
Vongunten may have seen the warning lights and gates too late
to stop safely. As a result, Vongunten’s motorcycle broke through the
crossing gate arm and struck the side of the Metrolink train. Passenger
Nadya Unger died at the scene and Vongunten sustained critical
injuries, including partial loss of one leg. The motorcycle, missing
its operator, its passenger and its front wheel, came to rest upright,
facing in the opposite direction of original travel. "You could assume
that the motorcycle wasn't in the middle of the track per se because of
the location that it ended up," California Highway Patrol officer
Gregory Bowcock told the Ventura County Star newspaper.
With the collision unseen by the Metrolink engineer, Train No. 117
proceeded to the Oxnard Transit Center, which was its next scheduled
stop. Prior to arrival in Oxnard, a passenger who had witnessed the
collision notified the train’s conductor of the event. Metrolink held
the train in Oxnard until officials could inspect it for signs of
damage. A preliminary report indicated that there was evidence of a
side impact, including motorcycle parts embedded into a coach and blood on the side of that coach.
In recent years, there have been multiple train collisions on the Oxnard Plain. In February 2015, a train collision at the Fifth St. and Rice Ave. grade crossing in Oxnard took the life of Metrolink Senior Engineer Glenn Steele.
By that time, Fifth & Rice had gained notoriety as the “deadliest
rail crossing in Ventura County”. In recognition of the many deaths and
injuries at Fifth & Rice, Congresswoman Julia Brownley (D-Westlake Village) secured $1.5 million in federal funds for the design of a grade separation at that location.
With the recent death of Nadya Unger, the Las Posas Road and Fifth
Street grade crossing now takes the mantel as “deadliest rail crossing
in Ventura County”. Here is a chronology of four prior rail collisions
at Fifth & Las Posas:
-
At 10:49 AM on December 30, 2013, as an Amtrak train passed by, a car
entered the grade crossing at Fifth St. and Las Posas Rd. The driver of
the vehicle died at the scene and a nearby railroad service worker
received injuries resulting from the accident.
- At 10:30 AM on January 24, 2014, crews responded to a train collision
at Fifth St. and Las Posas Rd. A seventy-seven year old woman who drove
her minivan into the side of a passing Amtrak train succumbed to her
injuries at the scene.
- At 8:25 AM on April 23, 2015, a Union Pacific freight train collided
with an SUV at the intersection of Fifth St. and Las Posas Rd. The
driver, a fifty-seven year old man, drove through the crossing gate arm
and into the side of the freight train. The driver succumbed to his
injuries at the scene.
- At 10:30 AM on November 21, 2015, a twenty-three year old man drove
his car through the crossing gate and into the side of a moving Amtrak
train at Fifth St. and Las Posas Rd. At the time of the collision, the
crossing gate arm was down and the safety lights were flashing. The
driver died days later at a local medical center.
In less than three years, there have been five fatal train collisions at
Fifth & Las Posas. The common denominator of all five collisions
was that the crossing gates were down, warning lights were flashing and
bells were ringing. Even so, each ill-fated vehicle entered the
railroad right of way and collided with a moving train. There is no
evidence that any one of the five most recent fatal accidents at Fifth
& Las Posas was a suicide.
Unlike the Fifth & Rice grade crossing, the Fifth & Las Posas grade crossing has only the minimal safety features mandated by law. At the tracks, Rice Ave. is a divided road, with overhead safety lights, signage,
and four crossing gates intended to seal the rail corridor from errant
vehicles. At the tracks, Las Posas Rd. is undivided, with no overhead
safety signage and only two crossing gates. Even if the gates were
down, a driver could cross over the double-yellow lines and drive
around the crossing gates. To the unsuspecting driver, the Las Posas Rd.
southbound approach to Fifth St. looks like a little-used rural grade
crossing.
On Friday April 22, 2016, one day after the death of Nadya Unger and the
critical injury to Garrett Vongunten, the Ventura County
Transportation Commission
(VCTC) voted to support a half-cent transportation sales tax for
Ventura County. Nineteen of the fifty-eight counties in California have
such a tax, including all the major counties in Southern California.
If it makes the November 2016 ballot, the measure will still require
approval by a two-thirds majority of county voters. If it passes that
hurdle, the new sales tax will provide $70 million annually, earmarked
for transportation improvement projects within Ventura County.
Five fatal train collisions at Fifth St. and Las Posas Rd. should be
enough to place that grade crossing at the top of Ventura County
transportation improvement projects. Suggested improvements include
realigning Las Posas Rd. to make it a divided road as it crosses the
tracks, installing overhead warning signs and creating a four-gate
system of vehicle barriers. Although foot traffic is light at that
location, the new safety plan should include sidewalks and pedestrian
gates there, as well.
Proposed
upgrades to the rail crossing will not stop speeders from trying to
beat a train to the crossing nor end inattentive driving, but they will
increase the chances that motorists will receive warning in time to
stop safely at Fifth & Las Posas for an oncoming train. I hope that
public officials throughout Ventura County support a half-cent sales
tax dedicated solely to transportation improvement projects.
By James McGillis at 02:01 PM | Railroad Safety | Comments (1) | Link