Passenger Trains > NOVA: Why Trains Crash

PBS has a promo for an upcoming NOVA program: Why Trains Crash. Scheduled for 2/22/2017.

The promo has a lot of gory photography. People being carried away on stretchers. The Spanish Talgo sideswiping a cat pole, a Metrolink train on its side, a ram puncturing a tank car, etc. Sarah Feinberg and others earnestly looking into the camera to tell us "people will die".

Yet transportation department officials seem to have no interest in the thousands that die on highways.

I'm setting the over/under for the first reference to "Positive Train Control" at 5 minutes, 20 seconds. And taking the under.

​NZ

Vegas odds at 13 to 4

NebraskaZephyr Wrote:
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> I'm setting the over/under for the first
> reference to "Positive Train Control" at 5
> minutes, 20 seconds. And taking the under.
>
> ​NZ

Yeah, same routine that they use on "Why Airplanes Crash".  Cherry pick a few details and make it as dramatic as possible!

raytc1944 Wrote:
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> Yet transportation department officials seem to
> have no interest in the thousands that die on
> highways.

That
              is
                        just
                                        not
                                                          true.

It's the media, political culture and much of the public which does not take street/highway safety issues as seriously as they should.

 

RuleG Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> raytc1944 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Yet transportation department officials seem to
> > have no interest in the thousands that die on
> > highways.
>
> That
>               is
>                        
> just
>                                  
>       not
>                                  
>                         true.
>
> It's the media, political culture and much of the
> public which does not take street/highway safety
> issues as seriously as they should.
>
>  
Unfortunately, in todays world, auto and/or truck crashes occur with such frequency as they are not newsworthy unless there are one or more fatalities, and then, only covered locally (unless it's a bus with multiple lives lost). 

The same is true with railroads...a couple of wheels jump the track, not newsworthy.  A car or more on its side...a blip on local news only.  Someone die, national news story for days on end!  It's all about sensationalism!  Look at the trash at the checkout aisles of your favorite stores!

Cost benefit analysis is used in all forms of  business. What is an acceptable monetary cost we will accept before we change the way thing's are done. Insurance payouts to victim's have to reach an unacceptable level before government's exert pressure on the business to make thing's safer. 
If all accident's were to eliminated, the population would expand to unsustainable levels. As the population increases, the birthrate is higher than the death rate, and so on and so on, til there is no where to put all the people and no means to feed all of them.

That's what one of my professor's told me in a business class in college.

I thought the birth rate and the death rate were the same, one per person.

John

Why YES! PTC is the answer . . . http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,4210665,page=1  RailNet802, over

Courts have held human life to have widely diverging values. Happens all the time.  You need to have a number to plug into an equation to measure the cost / benefit of a new baby seat, for example. 

Families who sue for the loss of a "bread winner's" life, or victims of a mass casualty, or cigarette smokers, etc it's all the same principle. Just the desired amounts differ.
 

raytc1944 Wrote:
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> Yet transportation department officials seem to
> have no interest in the thousands that die on
> highways.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            So, where have you been since the first modern auto safety device was mandated by the government?  Since the safety belt requirement, most of us have noticed a steady stream of mandated safety devices and features.  Also, when I was young in '40s/'50s, the death toll was over 50,000 on US roads, and the total miles travelled by road was a small fraction of current rates, yer the death toll is now down to around 30,000, a huge decrease in deaths per miles driven.....AND the roadways themselves are vastly improved over those of my youth.    AA

Stanford White
Carmel Valley, CA