Car crushed at Morrisville rail crossing brought back as a warning to other drivers
Two days after Thanksgiving, a four-door Honda Accord got stuck on the railroad tracks at the intersection of Aviation Parkway and Chapel Hill Road. The driver and two passengers managed to get out before the car was hit by an Amtrak train headed to Raleigh.
Now the Accord is parked on a trailer at the intersection, under a banner that reads, “Respect the Crossing. Respect the Tracks.” Morrisville police have put it here, at the center of town, as a warning of what can happen if drivers are careless at a railroad crossing, said police Lt. Tim Hendrickson.
“This is a safety message for people to recognize and understand the hazards of a crossing,” Hendrickson said. “Not just this crossing, but any railroad crossing that you come to.”
Hendrickson said the police department had long thought about placing a crushed car at the crossing as a warning of sorts, the way some agencies use them to get people thinking about driving while impaired or texting. After the accident on Nov. 30, the department got in touch with the owner’s insurance company, which agreed to lend the car to the town.
The town also got the blessing of the car’s owner, said Chief Patrice Andrews. Since it went on display Jan. 3, some residents have indicated on social media that they find it jarring but effective, Andrews said.
“It’s causing people to look. It certainly is, I think, slowing some traffic down as they’re looking,” she said. “I think we’re getting the effect that we’ve hoped to get with the awareness.”
Four people have died in collisions with freight trains at this intersection in the last five years. A couple from Southern Pines were killed when their car got stuck between the crossing arms in August 2014. A year later, in November 2015, a Cary couple died when they apparently made a wrong turn and got stuck on the tracks.
That’s what happened to the driver of the Honda Accord, who was attempting to turn left from Aviation Parkway onto Chapel Hill Road, also known as N.C. 54, at about 10 p.m., Hendrickson said. The driver overshot the intersection and ended up turning onto the tracks, where the car got lodged.
The crossing is more complex than some because it is part of the intersection of two busy roads. The N.C. Department of Transportation plans to eliminate a similar crossing up the road by building a bridge to carry McCrimmon Parkway over N.C. 54. Andrews says NCDOT eventually wants to realign N.C. 54 to shift the intersection with Aviation Parkway away from the railroad tracks.
But Hendrickson said the message police hope to send with the smashed Honda isn’t about any one crossing.
“People need to understand, this intersection is no more or less dangerous than any crossing regardless of if it’s Cary, it’s Raleigh, it’s in the mountains or it’s in California,” Hendrickson said. “They’re all dangerous.”
The car will remain on display through the end of the month.
This story was originally published January 13, 2020 at 4:57 PM.
