Number Of Pedestrians Struck By Trains Increasing Nationwide

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- In less than a week, two people in Maryland were killed while walking on train tracks. Here and across the nation, those kind of train accidents are increasing.

Alex DeMetrick has more on what might be behind the growing number of people being hit by trains.

While it's the kind of accident that's completely preventable, people continue to put themselves in mortal danger---whether they know it or not.

Monday evening in Montgomery County, a 16-year-old boy was struck and killed by an Amtrak train. The previous Friday, another person died while walking the tracks in Baltimore County. With something as big as a train, getting out of the way seems like it would be easy.

"I think it's just a common misconception that I'll just jump off the tracks when the train is coming. But it's coming so fast, you might not know it's coming until it's right there," said Libby Rector-Snipe.

Rector-Snipe is with Operation Life Safer, a non-profit that works with railroads to keep people and trains from colliding.

Lately, there's been a dangerous uptick. Last year in Maryland, eight people were killed while walking on the tracks and nine more were injured. That's a 42% increase from 2013. Nationwide, 501 people were struck and killed by trains and another 414 injured.

So what's happening?

"Oftentimes they'll have headphones in and be listening to music," Rector-Snipe said.

Sometimes they'll get trapped, like two women did on a railroad bridge last year in Indiana. Miraculously, they survived. Other times, they won't see the train coming.

Even when a train sounds its horn, people don't always get out of the way quickly enough.

"Strangely, when you're right on the tracks, it's very hard to know which way the train is coming from," she said.

These kind of accidents are called trespassing casualties because walking the tracks is against the law.

"It absolute is. It's illegal to be on the tracks or anywhere near them. It's private property," she said. "We ask people to stay off, stay away, stay safe."

The most common track-walkers are people who use rail lines as shortcuts for their walk to work or school.

The legal and safest way to venture onto train tracks is to walk only in designated crossing zones.