Interesting article from today’s Washington Times:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/aug/19/train-wrecks-keep-us-on-safety-track-for-worlds-lo/
Indeed it is interesting, as we consider the recent news from Spain and from India. It is a wonder to me that there are not more deaths reported from India, as we consider how many people ride on the outside of the cars.
Given how few passengers actually ride trains here compared to other countries, it is not surprising we have a low fatality rate.
In 2010, 2,357,219,000 rail passengers were carried in Germany, while 605,429,000 in US.
In 2011, there were 152 deaths from all sources associated with rail in Germany, 570 in US.
I think you’re mixing your apples with your oranges. I’m not sure how number of passengers relates to “deaths from all sources”. The above referenced article suggests that train/pedestrian collisions would fall into that all sources category.
I wonder how the comparisons would look, if passenger miles were comapared to deaths from operating those passenger trains?
Apples and apples. One year ago, there were almost four times as many deaths from all causes in the US as in Germany, again from all causes. I included the passengers carried figure to give an indication of the heavy traffic there, compared to rail lines here. Deaths related to rails are largely in relation to the number of trains running.
Given the news article is in the Washington Times and there is no supporting data as to the number of rail-related deaths in other counties, the headline seems dubious at best.
It is the Washington Times not the Post. A different standing on journalistic integrety at play.
In North America if you basically eliminate most forms of rail travel and replace with freight, surely the death rate from passenger travel will decrease, rail travel as we knew it is almost non-existent, as for people crashing into trains, or trains crashing into you, well, look both ways folks.
That being the case, wouldn’t you need to factor in number of freight trains running in both countries to make any kind of meaningful comparison.
That article seems to be a string of disconnected and relative statements that wander all over the place. Where does it explain the basis for its claim in the title, which itself lacks enough qualification to say what it means?
i agree, it would be more meaningful. But those numbers are hard to come by. If you had ever spent much time in germany, you would know that the number of trains running on many lines is very high. In any case, the claim that the US is the safest is not supported by any data given in the article, and only one year earlier, the number of rail-related deaths here “from all causes” was nearly 4X the number in Germany.