That’s Two
By Mitch Berg
The “Green Line” is up to two accidents in the two weeks since it’s opened (six if you count the two months of testing).
Incredibly, there have been no serious injuries and fatalities – yet.
3 Responses to “That’s Two”
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June 30th, 2014 at 10:56 am
Just for kicks, I took a look, and apparently about 2 million people are injured each year driving–30,000 fatally. The first is an injury rate of something around 1/million vehicle miles, the second is about 15 injuries/billion vehicle miles.
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811856.pdf
So if we assume that ridership of the Green line is about the same as Hiawatha–10 million riders/year going an average of, say, 10 miles–the line will be “about equal” with driving if they have 1-2 fatalities per year and 100 injuries. Of course, the promise of transit is that there would be fewer fatalities associated with it, but that won’t bother the boosters.
June 30th, 2014 at 2:21 pm
Could be that the train drivers are simply reassigned bus drivers…many of whom seemingly do not belong behind the wheel of ANY type of vehicle whatsoever.
June 30th, 2014 at 3:46 pm
Adrian, even if true, it illustrates what’s wrong with the system. 50 ton carriages, steel on steel (“bearing”, not a “brake”), going through the bar district. You could have every operator be perfect, and you’d still have problems. It’s a system designed to fail.