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Based on what we now know (and this may change as the investigation continues) it seems as if the Amtrak engineer is solely responsible for this week's wreck in Washington. He ignored posted speed limits of 30mph, instead going into the curve at over 80mph. Not only that, he was supposedly distracted by a passenger in the cab with him. Kind of odd that WA has a distracted driving law-private drivers can't even use a cell phone in a car.
So, if I were to ignore speed limits and say drive into a school zone at nearly 3 times the posted speed limit, and slammed into a bunch of kids in the crosswalk, I'm pretty sure I'd be held accountable. Certainly charged, most likely with vehicular homicide (thought the actual charge might change depending on specific state/local laws). No one would be making excuses about lack of "positive speed control" technology-that is my responsibility as the driver.
So, will he government operator that killed 3 people and injured dozens of others be held to the same standard? Will he be charged and prosecuted under the same laws? Or, as a government worker, will he be exempted from any responsibility...and the taxpayers instead be forced to pay for any civil suites due to his actions?
All he has to do is say he hit his head and can't remember what happened to cause the crash. That worked for the engineer( on a cell phone) in Philly when it was going over twice the speed limit and his train crashed.
Depends on how state law defines vehicular homicide. Considering the speed and inattention of the engineer it should be a very real possibility. When a driver of a car or truck is speeding excessively and kills someone involved in an accident then such charges are likely depending on the DA and situation. The same should go for this train's engineers. This isn't like a vehicle stuck on the tracks or a person walking on the tracks struck by the train. In these examples, there is no way for the train to avoid the death. In this case, speed was a factor as well as the inattention of the engineer.
Yet this stretch of track was paid for by Obama's 2009 $787 billion stimulus plan, of which Obama directed $8 billion to nearly a dozen rail projects around the country that were supposed to transform how Americans get around.
...
Washington state, however, eagerly took the stimulus money and promised to use it to speed up service between Portland and Seattle on Amtrak's Cascade line.
...
What's more, the bypass faced criticism from local officials who had warned for years that the route and speeds created huge safety risks. For one thing, the tracks run across several busy roads at grade, which increases risks of cars colliding with trains traveling close to 80 mph. And there were still sharp turns that required the high-speed trains to slow way down.
The town of Lakewood, which is along the bypass route, sued the state in 2013 in a failed attempt to stop the project. And that year a local paper editorialized that the risks posed by the new rail line weren't worth the 10 minutes it would shave off commuting times.
Just days before the crash, the mayor of Lakewood warned the state's transportation department about the safety hazard this new line posed, saying "this project was never needed and endangers our citizens."
... The Obama stimulus money also bought eight new Amtrak locomotives that, Washington's transportation department said, came equipped with "positive train control" equipment and software, which is designed to automatically prevent trains from speeding or ignoring signals.
Yet the doomed train was going 50 mph faster than the posted speed when it derailed.
So, what we have here is wasteful "stimulus" money that didn't get spent until years after the recession ended, that built a "high-speed" line with a top speed of 80 mph, that locals said posed serious safety risks, and went to buy "state-of-the-art" engines that were supposed to prevent the trains from speeding ... but didn't.
In other words, this high speed rail plan was pumped up, some in the state of Washington were so driven to get this done that they probably ignored some safety risks that others pointed out, and look what happened.
If those positive control systems that came equipped with the train failed, I would be surprised if we ever hear about it.
Based on what we now know (and this may change as the investigation continues) it seems as if the Amtrak engineer is solely responsible for this week's wreck in Washington. He ignored posted speed limits of 30mph, instead going into the curve at over 80mph. Not only that, he was supposedly distracted by a passenger in the cab with him. Kind of odd that WA has a distracted driving law-private drivers can't even use a cell phone in a car.
So, if I were to ignore speed limits and say drive into a school zone at nearly 3 times the posted speed limit, and slammed into a bunch of kids in the crosswalk, I'm pretty sure I'd be held accountable. Certainly charged, most likely with vehicular homicide (thought the actual charge might change depending on specific state/local laws). No one would be making excuses about lack of "positive speed control" technology-that is my responsibility as the driver.
So, will he government operator that killed 3 people and injured dozens of others be held to the same standard? Will he be charged and prosecuted under the same laws? Or, as a government worker, will he be exempted from any responsibility...and the taxpayers instead be forced to pay for any civil suites due to his actions?
I'd say it's a real possibility that the driver will be charged. Why was he going 80 in a zone meant for 30???
Yet this stretch of track was paid for by Obama's 2009 $787 billion stimulus plan, of which Obama directed $8 billion to nearly a dozen rail projects around the country that were supposed to transform how Americans get around.
...
Washington state, however, eagerly took the stimulus money and promised to use it to speed up service between Portland and Seattle on Amtrak's Cascade line.
...
What's more, the bypass faced criticism from local officials who had warned for years that the route and speeds created huge safety risks. For one thing, the tracks run across several busy roads at grade, which increases risks of cars colliding with trains traveling close to 80 mph. And there were still sharp turns that required the high-speed trains to slow way down.
The town of Lakewood, which is along the bypass route, sued the state in 2013 in a failed attempt to stop the project. And that year a local paper editorialized that the risks posed by the new rail line weren't worth the 10 minutes it would shave off commuting times.
Just days before the crash, the mayor of Lakewood warned the state's transportation department about the safety hazard this new line posed, saying "this project was never needed and endangers our citizens."
... The Obama stimulus money also bought eight new Amtrak locomotives that, Washington's transportation department said, came equipped with "positive train control" equipment and software, which is designed to automatically prevent trains from speeding or ignoring signals.
Yet the doomed train was going 50 mph faster than the posted speed when it derailed.
So, what we have here is wasteful "stimulus" money that didn't get spent until years after the recession ended, that built a "high-speed" line with a top speed of 80 mph, that locals said posed serious safety risks, and went to buy "state-of-the-art" engines that were supposed to prevent the trains from speeding ... but didn't.
In other words, this high speed rail plan was pumped up, some in the state of Washington were so driven to get this done that they probably ignored some safety risks that others pointed out, and look what happened.
If those positive control systems that came equipped with the train failed, I would be surprised if we ever hear about it.
Once again, this was a conventional train, not high speed rail. This was a bypass route, using existing track, in order to ease congestion on the existing route. This new route was intended to move people faster than the existing route, but that doesn't make it high speed rail.
The train was equipped for positive control system but it was not yet up and running. The fact is, Congress, at the behest of the railroad companies, had changed the implementation deadline from 2015 to 2018.
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