02-11-2023, 12:38 PM
(02-11-2023, 04:35 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: We act like this with car crashes, why not train crashes.
It does not matter who is at fault, what matters is preventing it from happening again.
Up to a point. I hope everybody understands that it is fundamentally impossible to protect against sufficiently irresponsible behaviour.
Quote:Just because we can "blame" the person who was hit does not mean there are not mitigating factors which could be addressed. The article indicates that CN routinely exceeds the 5 minute delay for the crossing when doing switching work, with lots of spurious activations. That clearly encourages this behaviour.
OK, that’s a good point. The spurious activations are especially concerning; when it comes to safety systems, it’s not actually “fail safe” to activate spuriously because it encourages people to ignore the signals. I remember seeing a video of a British rail crossing where the crossing “arms” are basically gates that, when closed, make it almost impossible to cross. Why were they “needed”? Because the crossing arms drop about 5 minutes, no exaggeration, before the train comes. Of course people ignored them.
Quote:Also, can you put yourself in the shoes of the people there? Did they just wait 5 minutes while no trains come, now one finally clears the intersection, how long would you wait? Would you be tempted? What if someone in front of you went through safely. Are you standing there with an anxious child? Are you late for your next activity because of the delay? We need to have empathy and not just demonize people.
(FWIW the same is probably true for drivers, but I also think that bad driver's behaviour is objectively less sympathetic and driving is an activity which we should demand higher standards for).