I’m an engineer for train systems. Our equipment kills people everyday; usually because of trespassers/suicides, but infrequently due to other reasons.
I can always make a system safer, for a cost. The IS rail industry spent a billions dollars on Positive Train Control, and statistically may have save a life a year, while making trains slower and less reliable.
That system was implemented due to the thought process described here. An email saying “that is too expensive for the cost of one life so we won’t do it” is not going to stand up in court.
Things as simple as the volume of the horn fall into this category… and make life worse for everyone. The US Code of Federal Regulation have an allowable range for horn volume. For residential areas this volume is just too loud. So horns historically are designed to allow the operator to blow however loud they need, with the full horn matching the regulation.
Someone sent an email saying “but the operator can blow the horn noncompliantly”… so now all horns are louder on new trains. Everyone living near a train is more inconvienced, no lives are saved, but legal doesn’t need to argue about the email in court.
Great point. In a lot of cases, we’re too reactive to perceived risk rather than not enough. I have a hard time guessing whether enforcing that through litigation is worse than regulation, which has its own iffy track record.
I’m an engineer for train systems. Our equipment kills people everyday; usually because of trespassers/suicides, but infrequently due to other reasons.
I can always make a system safer, for a cost. The IS rail industry spent a billions dollars on Positive Train Control, and statistically may have save a life a year, while making trains slower and less reliable.
That system was implemented due to the thought process described here. An email saying “that is too expensive for the cost of one life so we won’t do it” is not going to stand up in court.
Things as simple as the volume of the horn fall into this category… and make life worse for everyone. The US Code of Federal Regulation have an allowable range for horn volume. For residential areas this volume is just too loud. So horns historically are designed to allow the operator to blow however loud they need, with the full horn matching the regulation.
Someone sent an email saying “but the operator can blow the horn noncompliantly”… so now all horns are louder on new trains. Everyone living near a train is more inconvienced, no lives are saved, but legal doesn’t need to argue about the email in court.
Great point. In a lot of cases, we’re too reactive to perceived risk rather than not enough. I have a hard time guessing whether enforcing that through litigation is worse than regulation, which has its own iffy track record.