Suicide by Amtrak

That's what appears to have happened in San Juan Capistrano this afternoon:

A man is dead after his Toyota RAV4 collided with an Amtrak train.

The silver 1997 Toyota was stopped at Camino Capistrano and Avenida Aeropuerto around 11:10 a.m. Witnesses said as the southbound train approached, the Toyota drove into its path, said Orange County Sheriff's Department spokesman Jim Amormino. The impact pushed the SUV 800 feet along the tracks, leaving the unidentified driver dead at the scene, Amormino added.

"He drove right onto the tracks," said Amormino, adding crews would have to cut the driver's body out of the vehicle.One train passenger complained of neck and back injuries, and by 2 p.m., passengers were being loaded into another train to continue on southbound.

The incident is being handled as a traffic accident, and the sheriff's major accident reconstruction team is investigating, Amormino said.

Bruce Smith witnessed the collision from his car, which was the second vehicle behind the Toyota. As the train approached, the gates began to lower and warning horns sounded. But the Toyota bypassed the safeguards to drive onto the tracks, said Smith, a resident of the nearby Capistrano Valley Mobile Home Estates. The driver then stopped on the tracks for several seconds before the train hit.

"He had plenty of time to get past," Smith said. "You could hear the train coming."

I always feel sorry for the Amtrak crews in these situations. At least the train was running with the locomotive up front. That's a little safer for the engineer.