Skip to main content

A Wrong Turn

In the UK a pensioner made a wrong turn that could have ended in disaster. As the 85 year-old woman drove her car across a level crossing, she inexplicably turned onto the railway tracks and then proceeded to drive along them. She drove her Peugeot for some 75m before the car stopped, blocking the busy main line between London's Waterloo station and Bournemouth. The woman and her 20 year-old relative quickly got out of the car and the incident was immediately reported. Train services were stopped until the
April 16, 2012 Read time: 1 min
In the UK a pensioner made a wrong turn that could have ended in disaster. As the 85 year-old woman drove her car across a level crossing, she inexplicably turned onto the railway tracks and then proceeded to drive along them. She drove her 3504 Peugeot for some 75m before the car stopped, blocking the busy main line between London's Waterloo station and Bournemouth. The woman and her 20 year-old relative quickly got out of the car and the incident was immediately reported. Train services were stopped until the vehicle could be removed by the emergency services. The woman was treated for shock by paramedics. It is not clear why she made this mistake or how she confused the railway tracks for the road she had wished to take however.
 

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Jail time for parking
    February 27, 2012
    A woman in the Austrian city of Graz has had to go to jail for 500 days, for ignoring parking tickets.
  • VIDEO captures unloved, unowned Reynolds Bridge reduced to rubble
    May 18, 2015
    There was a big bang in a small town in the US state of Pennsylvania this month when a fragmentation explosion brought down the 100-year-old Reynolds Road Bridge. It was the end to the unloved bridge near Factoryville, population around 1,500. Factoryville is notable for a lack of factories ever since the one and only plant, a wool-into-cloth factory, closed down several years after it opened in the 1800s. Local residents were not sorry to see the felling of the 40m long, reinforced concrete arch deck
  • Changing policy for Europe’s road funding?
    August 27, 2013
    The 2011 EC White Paper on Transport acknowledges that transport is the backbone of Europe’s economy, directly employing 10 million people and accounting for approximately 5% of EU GDP. In addition, it recognises that ‘infrastructure shapes mobility’ and that ‘curbing mobility is not an option’. Given the importance policymakers place on the ability to move people and goods seamlessly across Europe, it becomes rather hard to explain why they have neglected for so long the main ‘vehicle’ for mobility acro
  • Distracted driving?
    September 11, 2015
    A woman in the UK was spotted by a cyclist eating her breakfast cereal while driving her children to school. The cyclist remonstrated with the woman for her behaviour, receiving insults in reply. Infuriated at her attitude, the cyclist then posted footage online of the incident that he had filmed with his helmet-mounted camera. This attracted thousands of views and numerous comments, before the incident was reported in the press. The woman subsequently handed herself in to the police and was charged for mot