Chicago Personal Injury Lawyer Blog
Though the city of Chicago has a large population, the number of people in the city during the working hours is much large as so many people choose to work in the city but live in the suburbs. To make this possible, many commuters drive themselves, carpool, or take public transportation into and from the city everyday, allowing them to make the journey to work and back with little hassle.
One of the most popular ways to travel into the city remains the system of commuter trains, many of which run out from the city in one direction and provide return trips. These lines are heavily utilized with daily ridership running between a few thousand and over sixty thousand passengers. Some lines have multiple trains running at a given time in each direction and can have express and local trains sharing the same areas.
With so many trains and so many riders, unfortunately there are occasional train accidents involving the pedestrians surrounding the street level crossings and/or the train station platforms. It appears that one such collision happened on Friday morning in Buffalo Grove.
Police have reported that they received reports of a body lying on the tracks used by the North Central Service Metra line, a commuter line that averaged about 5,400 passengers each weekday during 2010. When emergency crews responded, they determined that in fact a body of a 49-year-old female Buffalo Grove woman was found on the tracks with trauma consistent with a train collision. The woman was dead by the time authorities arrived.
What remains unclear is which train struck the woman and why that train crew did not alert police to the incident and call for help for the victim. The incident is currently under investigation by local police and Metra police who will try to determine exactly what happened.
Pedestrians and trains should be able to use the same street crossings without any incidents occur and they can as long as equipment does not malfunction, train drivers are operating with care, and pedestrians obey local traffic signals. The accidents that occur between these trains and pedestrians usually stem from negligence on the part of one or more parties.
It can be difficult to determine exactly what happened after a train crash and whether a victim has a valid claim for his or her injuries. That is one of the reasons the lawyers at Abels & Annes, P.C. offer a free case consultation to anyone who has been hurt in a train accident or to the surviving family members of a train accident victim who lost his or her life. If a train accident has left you injured, call us 24 hours a day at (312) 924-7575 or toll free at (855) 529-2442 and let us help you understand your legal rights.
Prior Blog Entry:
Accident at O’Hare Claims Life of Construction Worker, Chicago Personal Injury Lawyer Blog, published November 22, 2013.
Resource:
Officials: Woman found dead near station was hit by train, by Rosemary Regina Sobol, Chicago Tribune, published November 22, 2013.