A Metro light-rail train collided with a car turning left at East Washington and South 51st streets in Phoenix on Thursday afternoon.
Nobody aboard the train was hurt, and both the driver and passenger of the car appeared uninjured at the scene of the accident.
At about 1 p.m., the green Toyota Camry steered around the car in front of it in the left turn lane of 51st Street and attempted to run a red light while turning onto Washington Street, said passengers onboard the light rail.
“I was looking forward, and all of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I see this car veering in front of us,” said Robert Nolan, an Asian languages-Japanese freshman who was sitting in the front-most passenger car of the train.
“He flipped a giant U-turn, trying to beat the train, and the train beat him,” Nolan said.
The eastbound train slammed on its brakes in an attempt to avoid the car, but collided with its back-left bumper. A piece of the train’s front bumper was torn off, and the back-left brake light and trunk of the car were damaged in the accident.
J’Net Farnsworth, a housing and community development undergraduate student at ASU, was also sitting in the front car of the train on her way home from Downtown campus classes at the time of the accident. She said she believed the collision was not the light-rail driver’s fault, because the train needs to have a green light to go through intersections.
“If we’d hit [the car] broadside, if [the driver] survived, he’d be in bad shape,” Farnsworth said.
Hillary Foose, public information officer for Metro, said that although she could not comment on the incident, a vehicle making an illegal left turn in front of a light rail train would receive the same citation as if it ran a red light. She added that the most common cause of light-rail collisions so far have been other drivers not adhering to traffic laws.
“They’re all extremely unfortunate, but [these accidents] serve as good reminders for people to obey their traffic signals,” she said.
Foose said that this is the 11th accident since the light-rail trains have been open to the public, and that all of the collisions have been with another vehicle.
The car came to a complete stop on the westbound light-rail tracks. Metro employees at the scene immediately assisted the driver in moving the vehicle so that westbound trains could continue to run.
Police later arrived at the scene, along with more Metro employees, to photograph the damage to the light rail train and OK the train to continue its route.
The train resumed its route at approximately 1:15 p.m.
Reach the reporter at trabens@asu.edu.
