This may be too much of a tragic coincidence.
For the second time in just three days, a San Bernardino County teenager has been killed in a collision with a train while riding his bike.
According to the Fontana Herald News, 18-year old Fontana resident Carlos Morales Guzman was riding north on Beech Avenue above Ceres Ave when he attempted to cross the train tracks and was hit by a westbound train. He was pronounced dead at the scene at 5:20 pm.
A street view shows a traditional railroad crossing arm; if it was working, Guzman may have tried to ride around it.
Remarkably, the collision occurred at exactly the same time of day, and on what appears to be the same tracks, as the collision that killed 19-year old Brendan Allen Adams just three days earlier, less than 20 miles away.
This is the 34th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the fourth in San Bernardino County. Guzman is the fourth person killed in a collision with a train since the first of the year, and as noted, the second in just three days.
It’s also the third cycling death in the last three days, following the death of a 25-year old Los Angeles man in Pasadena on Saturday, just 15 minutes after the wreck that took Guzman’s life.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Carlos Guzman and all his family and loved ones.
You are correct that the locations of both incidents, as reported in the media, are on Metrolink’s San Gabriel Subdivision, used by an average of 42 trains daily, including San Bernardino Line commuter service and BNSF freight trains.
According to the Federal Railroad Administration database, the crossing at Beech Avenue in Fontana (026148G) and the crossing at Benson Avenue in Montclair (026176K) are both equipped with gates, flashing lights, and bells, connected to so-called “constant warning time” train detectors, designed to activate at least 20 seconds before a train, moving at any speed, enters the crossing.
The FRA also maintains a database of collisions at highway-rail grade crossings, compiled from mandatory reports by railroads. The last reported collision at either of these crossings was in 1994, though records for 2012 and 2013 aren’t yet complete.
You can find this information, as I did, for these and other crossings on the FRA’s Office of Safety Analysis web site:
http://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/OfficeofSafety/default.aspx
I would be interested to know if the 18 yr old was wearing headphones durring the time of the accident. All too often I have come accross a situation with a cyclist wearing headphones and listening to music making them completely oblivious to whats going on around them…
I saw the body before ambulance came and people were saying he didn’t hear the train
I think he was wearing headsets 🙁 sad
did he look really bad? i knew this boy since he was really young and till this day it breaks my heart! his family still think its a dream he was a really good boy and i always think to myself what was he thinking?