Lot of people asking me about this train crash in Washington--here's what's on my mind... In 2005 there was a dreadful train crash in Amagasaki, Japan. A staggering 107 people died when a train derailed into an apartment building.
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So, for Japan: 2000: 5 2001: 0 2002: 0 2003: 0 2004: 0 2005: 107 2006: 0 2007: 0 2008: 0 2009: 0 2010: 0 2011: 0 2012: 0 2013: 0 2014: 0 2015: 0 2016: 0 ...a grand total of 112 fatalities caused by train crashes. How about the USA?
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Source: https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_02_01.html_mfd … 2000: 10 2001: 6 2002: 15 2003: 4 2004: 13 2005: 33 2006: 6 2007: 9 2008: 27 2009: 4 2010: 8 2011: 6 2012: 9 2013: 11 2014: 5 2015: 11 2016: 8 ...185 fatalities in the same time frame.
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Problem is USA carries 4.95 billion passengers on all of its railways (Amtrak, Commuter, Subway, Streetcar, etc) in a year, whereas Japan carries 18 billion passengers per year *just on its largest rail companies* (JR East, West, Central + 16 major private rail operators)
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So Japan is averaging 6.6 deaths per year with over 18 billion riders...whereas the USA is averaging 10.9 deaths per year with less than 5 billion riders Nearly twice as many deaths despite less than a third of the ridership! Very troubling safety record here...
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I haven't heard any information yet about the cause of this accident in Washington, and it's possible that it was due to human error, which (as was the case in Amagasaki) can thwart the best of safety measures...
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...but that's kind of beside the point, which is that we have an unacceptable number of "background fatalities" happening every year on our railways which nobody bats an eye at. Huge, newsworthy crashes are bound to happen occasionally--but there's no excuse for the rest!
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I suppose we're just a bit desensitized by the incredible amount of carnage that goes down on our roads every year--what's a dozen dead in a train crash every year, compared to 40,000 dead in car crashes? But that's just an explanation--it is not an excuse!
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Inaho 14 crashed during a snowstorm in 2005 where 5 were killed.
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alon caught that oversight on my part and mentioned it the other day--2005 was a pretty bad year for JR, huh
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annus horibilus.
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what ppo really want to know is if you arranged it to happen to pull more funding into US train lines
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