A couple was killed early this morning when their car slammed into the freight train it was trying to outrun in Taylor.
The crash happened shortly after 1 a.m. today on the tracks at Goddard west of Pelham, Taylor Police Lt. Brian Raboczkay said.
“There were other cars stopped for the railroad crossing and he sped around those cars in the center lane and he hit the train at the sixth boxcar down,” said Raboczkay.
He confirmed the crossing equipment was working.
Raboczkay wouldn’t release the names of the people in the car, but James Osborn, 77, of Lincoln Park, said his 28-year-old grandson, David Osborn, who lives with him, was the driver of the Chevrolet.
The senior Osborn was able only to confirm that the passenger was his grandson’s girlfriend.
“I don’t know why he was even there,” the grieving grandfather said today, adding that David Osborn is survived by a 9-year-old son, Blake.
David Osborn and his passenger were was pronounced dead at the scene, according to police.
The accident remains under investigation.
The collision comes five months after another fatal car-train crash in Wayne County. Five people, four of them teenagers, were killed in July when they tried to get across tracks at Hannan Road in Canton and were struck by an oncoming Amtrak train.
Witnesses in that incident also reported that the train-warning equipment was working and that the car swerved around a waiting SUV in an effort to beat the train.
Contact ZLATI MEYER : 313-223-4439 or
meyer@freepress.com
