Seattle driver ended up on elevated railway tracks in her Mazda — and says her GPS told her to do so

Footage of a Mazda driver somehow ending up on the tracks of the Seattle light rail system has gone viral online with people all asking the same question: How did she get up there? The incident caused major delays for commuters waiting for their train.

The red Mazda CX-5 pulled into the Mt. Baker light rail station at around 5:50 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon. The driver had reportedly driven along a significant chunk of the rail before eventually getting stuck on the track. A similar mistake was made by a self-driving car earlier this year.

A picture shared on Reddit showed the car on the tracks and footage shows the car coming to a stop at an area clearly intended for commuters to board a train. A transit safety officer approaches the vehicle and the woman gets out of the car.

Thankfully nobody was hurt but trains in the area suffered service disruptions of roughly two hours while the issue was dealt with according to mynorthwest.com. The woman had to leave the car on the tracks and it took a while to remove it from the tracks. Power to the tracks had to be shut off in order to allow the emergency services to retrieve the vehicle. Services fully resumed around 9 p.m. after the car had been removed from the tracks.

How did the woman and her Mazda even get up there?

The rail tracks are elevated so many are rightfully wondering how a car on the ground could have ended up on the tracks in the first place. The train tracks and the road rarely intersect and when they do it’s normally at a level crossing. Such crossings come with risks as cars can sometimes get stuck on the tracks like one case involving a woman in New York who died after driving onto such a crossing. 

The driver, who was a 70-year-old woman, apparently told witnesses at the scene that she simply followed her GPS which somehow led her to this predicament. A Google street view of the area shows that there aren’t any nearby roads on the same level as the elevated tracks meaning the woman must have driven for quite some distance before coming to a stop.