DELRAY BEACH, Fla — Two people are dead after their SUV was struck by a high-speed commuter train in South Florida, authorities said.
The crash occurred Wednesday night in Delray Beach, south of West Palm Beach. Witnesses told police the vehicle was on the tracks when it was hit by the southbound Brightline train, officials said.
The National Transportation Safety Board announced that it was launching a team to conduct a safety investigation of the crash.
At least 80 deaths have now been connected to Brightline since it began operations in July 2017, running from West Palm Beach to Miami.
That’s one death for approximately every 32,000 miles its trains travel, the highest rate among the nation’s more than 800 railroads, according to an ongoing Associated Press analysis that began in 2019.
Among U.S. railroads that log at least 100,000 train miles (a year, the next-highest rate since 2017 belongs to central Florida’s SunRail commuter service, which has averaged one death for every 117,000 miles.
None of the deaths involving Brightline have been found to be the railroad’s fault. Most have been suicides, pedestrians who tried to run across the tracks ahead of a train or drivers who maneuvered around crossing gates rather than wait.
