Deerfield-News.com-Deerfield Beach,Fl-In just five years Brightline trains have collided with 59 people who in most cases tried to beat the train. Some of the other deaths were by suicide. The high-speed rail started in 2017 with service in Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties. The latest death came in Hollywood this week. Not one of the deaths has been attributed to the train, in each case it was a driver trying to go around the guard rails, a driver trying to beat the gate, or a suicide.
Brightline has the worst fatality rate in the nation, according to an ongoing Associated Press analysis of Federal Railroad Administration data that began in 2019.
Its trains have fatally struck 59 people since beginning test runs in 2017, an average of about one death every 33,000 miles. Central Florida’s SunRail has the second-worst rate among railroads that operate at least 100,000 miles annually – its trains have fatally struck someone every 105,000 miles since 2017. More than 800 railroads operate in the U.S.
Fair Use AP-analysis
