12-11-2023, 06:55 AM
(12-11-2023, 01:35 AM)ijmorlan Wrote:(12-10-2023, 05:55 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: I realize this is actually wrong. Safety paranoia doesn't actually describe what is happening...it's actually about liability. The reason the trains are so heavily restricted is because the engineers are believe they could be liable if things go wrong. Unlike with cars, where drivers are the ones who will be liable.
I’d love to hear a lawyer’s expert take on this.
I know that many ridiculous liability decisions have been taken by the courts, making liable the innocent victims (property and business owners, manufacturers) of the irresponsible behaviour of others, but even so I have trouble believing that the Region would really be liable if their LRVs went at 70km/h down King St. when motor vehicles are mostly doing 60km/h and there was a collision caused by a motor vehicle violating the traffic law.
You think lawyers will be immune to (or an immunity from) liability paranoia... I'm pretty sure they're the ones driving it...
Or at least they are contributing. Lawyers are the absolute king of "don't say anything you aren't certain of".
As for the specific situation, it's less about specific risk and instead about the absolute terror of anything unknown. The primary way engineers eliminate risk is by not doing engineering. They copy designs verbatim from books, so later they blame the book. But unlike roads, LRTs are rare, so there aren't the same kind of design guides available, so they don't have anything to copy from to limit their professional liability.