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Sen. Blumenthal to introduce rail safety legislation
Good. There will undoubtedly be negatives to Sen. Blumenthal’s legislation, but as summarized in the above Newswire I can only agree with the proposal in broad outline.
Nanny
The Senate passed an immigration bill. It’s thr House which won’t vote on a bill which would probably pass if given an up or down vote.
Bad…More un-needed big government in the private sector. Maybe I missed it but is the good senator a Democrat?..
Bad…congress can’t manage itself, but they sure stick their nose in everyone else’s business. Work on an immigration bill first, then worry about sticking cameras in the the engines. besides, by the time these congressional morons agree to anything, the railroads will have there cameras installed!
Anybody thinking inward facing cameras is the fix all to our nation’s rail safety problems has never worked on the railroad.
I wonder if he reported his “close-call” while doing a silly stand-up photo op on a Metro-North platform. This loon is trying to one-up Chuck Schumer.
If they want to stop these horrific accidents then let’s get serious about addressing fatigue in the transportation industry: Railroads, trucking, all of it. An inward-facing camera will not make the crew any less tired or think any more clearly.
Glad to see someone in D.C. recognizes their own agency (the FCC) is one of the major impediments to installing PTC as fast as they’d like.
How about mandating automated announcements at all commuter rail stations saying “Train Approaching…Stand Behind Yellow Line”. Oh wait, stations already have this but apparently the announcements don’t apply to US Senators.
All you Right-wing naysayers complain about too many regs. What do you bozos want; More and nastier accident like the ones that occur in third world countries? Look at the rash of accidents that involve movement of crude. something has got to be done and includes more regulation.
Sad to say, he is a Democrat.
if the honorable gentlemen’s opinion is that inward and outward facing cameras will have a positive effect on rail safety: I would suggest the honorable gentleman remove his head from his rectum.
I hope obama will accept this new act because if not, Connecticut will be in really bad shape if not passed.
2012 was the safest year on American Railroads in history–and without many of the technological issues yet in place. I am not sure how 2013 ranks to 2012–might or might not be better than 2013 even with a few high profile accidents in 2013.
In the medical industry, which continues to implement government mandated technological changes, the research shows only limited improvement in outcomes comparing before and after new technology (most measures are unchanged, with some actually slightly worse after implementing new technology).
I remain interested to see if mandated changes–particularly those coming from Congress rather than the regulatory process (wherein public comment is considered)–will actually continue safety improvements, or will overall safety improvements stall…
Existing business and regulatory considerations already favor continued efforts to improve railroad safety.
And exactly how will inward facing cameras fix that m&m miller? Alerters, yes, by all means. In my land they are mandatory. But cameras really? Great for laying blame, notsogreat for actually preventing sonething from happening
If you going to do something good reduce the hours of service law to ten hours
So, senator. Do you think that the house republicans will along with this and provide the money to pay for this? Or will this be an unfunded mandate?
This is the same idiot that stood past the yellow line on a platform and just about was taken out by a train. Safety is good and you can never have too much. But you can’t prevent stupid people from doing stupid things.
Guess I missed the Senator’s “high profile rail catastrophes in Connecticut,” unless CT managed to annex Spuyten Duyvil.
With respect to his proposals, it looks to me like a mixed bag. I can see possible benefits to a few items here (alerters and the close-call reporting system are examples). Most of the rest is “meh”–probably won’t help too much, but mostly won’t hurt too much either. And one or two items (cameras) are plain bad policy.
In fairness to Sen. Blumenthal, though, did somebody expect a politician (regardless of party) to have a clue about railroad safety? Politicians (again, regardless of party) don’t really get rewarded for understanding the issues, after all. They get rewarded for doing something and making a bunch of noise about it. Actually helping with a problem is nice if it happens, but not usually career-threatening if it doesn’t.