1/4/2022- 4:59 p.m.
A pedestrian was struck and killed by a passenger train in Florida Tuesday, becoming the fifth person to be killed on the Brightline railroad in the last month.
Tuesday’s victim was hit around 7:50 a.m., according to Boynton Beach police.
The five deaths on the Brightline route, which runs between Miami and West Palm Beach, have all occurred in the last month after services restarted following a pandemic-related shutdown.
Since Brightline began test runs in 2017, a total of 53 other people have been killed by the trains, but not because of equipment or crew failures, according to an Associated Press analysis of Federal Railroad Administration data.
After a previous death, the privately owned railroad said it was implementing a number of new safety measures including infrared detectors which notify engineers when a person or car is near tracks and red lights at crossings to ensure drivers don’t attempt to go around barriers as trains approach and pass.
According to data, Brightline has the worst fatality rate among railroads, with one death for every 33,000 miles. The second-worst is SunRail, another Florida railroad, which has a fatal strike about once every 100,000 miles.
Of the recent Brightline deaths, two were killed when a car drove into the path of an oncoming train on Dec. 30, a pedestrian was struck Dec. 7 and another was struck four days later.
