How a driver got caught between RR crossing arms before fatal Durham collision
The driver who was hit and killed by an Amtrak train in East Durham last month made an illegal right turn on red just before he got stuck between the railroad crossing arms on South Driver Street, according to Durham police investigators.
Charles Hightower was going west on East Pettigrew Street when he came to the traffic light at Driver Street. The light was red, according to police, and an electronic sign next to the traffic light said, “No Right Turn Train,” to indicate that a train was coming on the tracks that parallel Pettigrew Street.
Hightower turned right anyway, police say, and slipped under the first crossing arm as it came down. But before he could cross the three tracks and continue north on Driver Street, the crossing arm in front of him, near Peabody Street, came down, according to a report from Durham police investigators.
Hightower then made a U-turn and attempted to get out of the crossing by going back to Pettigrew Street. Before he made it, the second arm on the Pettigrew Street side of the crossing came down, blocking his path, according to the report.
He then did another U-turn and was attempting to head north on Driver Street when his Audi sedan was hit by Amtrak’s Piedmont, which had just left the Durham station en route to Cary and Raleigh.
The train carried the Audi nearly 900 feet down the tracks, according to the police report, and the car caught fire. Hightower, 52, was the sole occupant and was pronounced dead at the scene.
No one on the train was seriously injured.
The Driver Street crossing is one of three in East Durham that state and local authorities are looking to close or replace because of safety issues.
Durham County and GoTriangle received a $1.2 million federal grant to help craft a plan for eliminating the at-grade crossings at Driver and Plum streets and the nearest one at Ellis Road. Congress recently appropriated another $850,000 for the project, and $600,000 will come from Durham’s local transit sales tax.
The 18-month study, which should begin later this year, will provide options for replacing the existing crossings with bridges or underpasses, either there or elsewhere along the corridor. Other possibilities include creating crossings exclusively for bicycles and pedestrians or leaving everything as it is now.
These dangerous Durham railroad crossings could be eliminated, but it’s not that simple
