This is my public service announcement of the day. Don’t try to race a train. One SUV driver in North Carolina is lucky to be alive after driving around the gates and being hit by a train. His vehicle was dragged 200 feet down the tracks. 

Man drives SUV around railroad gates and gets hit by train 

A witness in Canton, North Carolina, shared that they watched an SUV drive around railroad crossing gates. The driver failed to beat an oncoming train as it slammed into his Mitsubishi Outlander Sport. 

It was dragged about 200 feet before coming to a stop around Fifth Street NE and Young Avenue NE. But police officers are a bit puzzled because the driver is missing. 

According to Yahoo, the train engineer shared that they were approaching the vehicle when it went around the gate and stopped. Then the driver jumped out and ran away from the scene. 

Firefighters were a bit surprised by the condition of the Mitsubishi SUV. It wasn’t heavily damaged as expected. That bodes well for the Mitsubishi Outlander, showing that it could be more durable than expected. 

Luckily, there were no injuries related to the incident. The train didn’t sustain any serious damage either. But why did the driver disappear? Canton police shared that the vehicle wasn’t reported stolen and the driver remains unidentified. 

Eventually, the driver will want to show up to claim his car, unless he wants to keep making payments on something he doesn’t drive. Perhaps he was embarrassed about it, or driving under the influence.