Train Tracks

It has proven to be one of my most unpopular theories, and I don’t expect that to change just because more people are exposed to it. If an object is stationary on train tracks, the probability that it will be hit by a train is increased. If an object is not stopped on a train track it is virtually impossible for it to be hit by a train.

Although it is not my intention to appear unsympathetic or callous, I cannot understand why anyone would be surprised that a bus stopped on railroad tracks might be hit by a train. I have been accused of saying that the victims deserve what they get if they stop on the tracks. Not at all. Particularly if the victims do not make the decision to stop on the tracks. Being hit by a train is only one of the possible outcomes. But it shouldn’t come as a surprise. And avoiding being hit couldn’t be simpler.

Even as a child watching cartoons I found it incomprehensible that a character running from a train would continue to run on the tracks, when a side step to the right or to the left would avert almost certain disaster. Maybe this is the deep seated root of this astounding phenomenon. The behavior has been modeled from an early age. Snidley Whiplash ties Nell to the tracks precisely so that she will be hit by a train. He knows the odds are in his favor, and only the intervention of some do-gooder will prevent the outcome of his fiendish plot.

Maybe the only surprising thing is that more people don’t lie down on a lumber mill conveyors.

Crackpot Corner