Spot1990 said:
Treblaine said:
Yes there is. It's called a fence.
Put it along lines where people are likely to cross up till the point where there is a bridge/tunnel or designated crossing point. If a level crossing, have it blare a siren warning of an oncoming train or a CCTV monitoring, there is no reason to keep living in the 19th centry. Fences are cheap. Sirens are cheap. A human life is priceless.
If a human life is priceless maybe people should learn to take better care of themselves. I'll give a life as much value as the person living it does. Chucking something in front of a train is not how you treat something priceless.
You would appreciate this if you had to work in a dangerous environment like a third-world oil refinery. Its easy to be callous about peoples lives around dangerous machinery when it's not people you know who have been horribly killed, thankfully not my experience but my Dad was an oil worker during the Piper Alpha disaster and he had many of his friends and co-workmates killed in that "accident". Well accidents don't just happen, you can't just says "derp, shouldn't have done that!" HOW ARE YOU GOING TO PREVENT THAT HAPPENING! How could this have been prevented.
That's completely different. Those people are working with dangerous machinery and have to be around it, there needs to be safety regulations. This guy jumped in front of a dangerous machine for no good reason. It was a voluntary act. "Don't hurl yourself into the path of a heavy duty 70m/h battering ram" enters firmly into the realm of personal responsibility because it's common sense.
After that may dad retrained as a safety officer and he's drilled into me what it means to be responsible for peoples lives.
All well and good, but people need to be responsible for their own lives too. Can't protect them from everything, and if they're the kind of person who needs to be protected from stepping in front of an oncoming train then eventually something's going to get them. Probably their morning bath toast.
A sign is not enough. We are bombarded with signs all day, if everyone stopped to read each one and consider it no one would get anywhere and the public generally don't. You can't just say "well most people are stupid" as that says most people deserves to die for an innocent oversight! You cannot use a sign to waiver all responsibility, you cannot expect it to prevent such pointless loss of life as this.
A sign is more than enough. The tracks and barrelling doom machine should be enough. The obvious danger of crossing train tracks should be enough. Train tracks, incoming train barrelling down. How is that an "innocent oversight"?
A classic example of how people get killed on rails is with a pair of tracks they actually see a train passing on their right side (the track near them) and wait for it to pass but just as the last carriage passes and they step out they see another train coming from the left on the other track! The train's size and noise masked the other one coming till it was less that a second from impact they have no time to react and are pulverised.
How can this be prevented? When one train driver sees someone (a hiker maybe) waiting to pass and notice another train pass on the other side then they honk their horn to warn them and follow pre arranged instructions to reduce the danger of them immediately stepping out afterwards.
Or the person can use common sense, wait five seconds and see if the coast is clear, kinda like they do when large trucks pass by on the road.
Every time there is loss of life in a company or authority then those RESPONSIBLE should ask "how can we prevent this ever happening again".
The guy responsible is a bit too dead to ask that.
This happens after every airplane crash. Once they find the cause of the disaster then all planes with a similar fault are legally obliged to fix the problem As Soon As Possible (literally) or they will be grounded until they do.
A fault with a plane is hugely different from someone chucking themselves in front of a train. One is a problem with the machine, the other is a person choosing to chuck themselves in front of a train.
You may be some sort of intellectual elitist who think it's OK for the stupid masses to be killed, well consider just how sociopathic that is and how bloody disastrous it would be if people responsible for dangerous equipment held your views.
Nope, just not my view that people need to have their hand held for every little thing. If you can't figure out that trains are dangerous then obviously you don't deserve to die tragically, but it's unlikely you'll experience retirement. A bit of personal responsibility and common sense goes a long way.
Trains stop at designated areas, travel at a fairly consistent speed, don't leave a predetermined track. There is literally no excuse for getting hit by one and no way to pass the blame.
Ah, so your respect for human life is entirely conditional on your own intellectual standards.
That's evil.
People who walk across over a level crossing are working with dangerous machinery. It is no different if you work on an oil rig or live in a town with a railway going through the middle
This guy jumped in front of a dangerous machine for no good reason.
What? Who says he jumped?
Look I've read the inquest of how people die on level crossings, it happens when they cross them every day for years, the eyes only look forwards and trains approach at such high speed and are not that noisy, by the time you hear it coming it is too close and too fast for them to get out of the way. They listen, they look right, look left, step out and round the bend *RRRRRRRRAAAAAAA!!* and splat.
I've seen it myself, I walked out onto the station platform and happened to be looking down the track and heard nothing as I turned right only then did I hear the high speed train AS IT PASSED ME! I was no more than 8 feet from the train and I didn't notice it till it was practically staring it down. You'll understand how a high speed train can "sneak up on people".
It is entirely plausible that he had no idea he was stepping out in front of a high speed train, till it was too late.
Or the person can use common sense
Do not mistake "the ideal thing to do" with "common sense". Common sense is the sense that the common man possesses and it is quite clear that does NOT extend to waiting an extra 5 seconds than all their senses deem necessary. For an average person, they see train, hear train, but assume that the only train is the one that safely passed. You cannot expect "common sense" to include quick abstract thinking.
Deaths involving dangerous equipment are the responsibility of the operators of that equipment.
Stop being bloody minded of refusing to accept responsibility, I'd like you to meet my father, he'll give you a good dressing down and maybe you'll realise why you are not and never should be responsible for a company that runs and operates dangerous equipment.
"Can't protect people from everything" is NO EXCUSE to refuse to protect people from your own dangerous machinery. The train company could do the bare minimum of a deterrent and a sign is not a deterrent for how much signs are abused. How often have you seen a "CAUTION! WET FLOOR!" sign on a bone dry floor? Signs get ignored over the years, the foreseeable danger is someone who regularly cuts across the same track and could over the years never come across a train as they are crossing to the point where odds are they don't have to stop, look and listen either way.
It is VERY EASY to get killed by a train on tracks for how suddenly they approach. Do. Not. Be. Bloody. Minded. Acting under the delusion that the ONLY way you could get knocked down by a train is deliberately leaping in front of one. It is a shameful insult to those who have tragically lost their lives taking what they thought was due attention but was not enough.
People DO need their hand held. They do NOT understand nor appreciate the dangers. They think
"I can cross a road, I can cross a train track"
not the same.
People ARE responsible and DO use common sense, the problem is there are reasonable limits to common sense. Most people don't realise how quickly a high-speed train can close on them until it is too late. They don't realise how they can be literally petrified by the shock of seeing a train they didn't expect speeding towards them at such unfathomable velocity, they can't even consider how they can be terrified like a deer in headlights.
People DO need hand holding. Unless you really can train the entire public on how to cross a train tracks safely, then companies have a responsibility to fence around tracks in habited areas.
, wouldn't trade it for anything!
