A police officer in North Carolina found out the hard way that there are some places you just can’t park a police cruiser. The Greensboro officer was responding to a collision involving two vehicles in Jamestown, NC, at the end of November, reports local news outlet ABC 11. Upon arrival the officer parked their state-issued Explorer Police Interceptor over the train tracks. Mere minutes later an Amtrak train came through and destroyed the police SUV.
While attending to the incident, the officer must have forgotten where they’d parked as the crossing lights started flashing and the barriers began closing, which trapped the car across the tracks. An Amtrak passenger service then came through town, reports CarScoops, and I’m sure you can guess how things went from there:
A police officer in Greensboro, North Carolina, has been lucky to escape with his life after ditching his patrol car at a railway crossing shortly before it was rear-ended by an Amtrak train. However, it doesn’t appear as though any kind of mechanical failure forced the Ford Explorer cruiser to be left on the tracks.
Local media understands that the unidentified officer was responding to a two-car crash on Hilltop Road and, for some reason, they decided it would be a good idea to block off the road by parallel parking directly along the train tracks. It’s unclear why the officer parked on the tracks, but it proved to be a very bad decision.
Footage shared online of the collision shows the train rear-ending the police-issued Ford Explorer SUV. The trunk of the car is completely flattened by the impact, and the car jolts forward as it’s hit by the train.
The Amtrak service quickly came to a stop after the collision, and local media reports that none of the 58 people onboard were injured as a result of the crash. The Amtrak service was travelling from Charalotte to Raleigh when the crash occurred.
Greensboro Police Department have launched a probe into the cause of the collision, though it remains pretty clear what happened. While the investigation is ongoing, the officer involved will reportedly remain on active duty. There’s no mention of any additional parking lessons being handed out to them before they’re allowed back behind the wheel of a police car.
America has a worrying relationship with rail crossings and hundreds of cars are hit by trains every year. In fact, the U.S. Department of Transportation reports that more than 200 people are killed every year on rail crossings across the country. The deadliest line in the U.S. is Florida’s high-speed Brightline service, which was involved in the deaths of nine people over nine weeks at the start of 2024.