Headlines we’ll see soon in the Chronicle
The Chronicle had a second follow-up this week on last month’s article on two METRORail “incidents.”
It’s clear that proper procedures weren’t followed, and it seems that supervision was inadequate. It’s good that an investigation was held, and it’s good that METRO is responding.
But the Chronicle calling this a “near collision” is ridiculous. And running three articles is overkill. Let’s put this in perspective. Imagine these headlines:
Car drives wrong way down one way street, comes within blocks of hitting another car
Two drivers see each other in parking lot; no collision
The real transportation safety issue isn’t light rail; it’s cars. As HGAC’s regional transportation plan (pdf) notes:
In the Houston-Galveston region between 1999 and 2001, there were 252,241 serious crashes, an average of 84,080 a year (or 230 a day). Of these crashes, 1,882 persons were killed (an average of 627 a year) and 281,914 persons were injured (an average of 93,971 a year).
We’re killing two people a day on roadways, and we don’t even notice. “News” is novelty; because light rail is new, it gets attention. Cars killing people is normal, so those stories get buried. Flying has the same novelty factor as trains, so it gets the same disproportionate coverage. Imagine this headline:
Driver notices strange sound, aborts commute and drives to mechanic
The Chronicle notes:
Wilson said that when MetroRail was designed and built, before his arrival in May 2004, the agency’s philosophy called for a “visual flight operation” — one in which the train operators would depend largely on what they could see to ensure safety.
They don’t note that that’s how streetcars have been operated for 150 years. More to the point, that’s how driving works: you look for other cars and stop before you run into them.
Let’s review:
- Light rail: a fender bender every month; one death in 3 1/2 years (and he was the party at fault in the accident)
- Commercial airplanes: last crash in the Houston area was at least 30 years ago.
- Cars: 230 major crashes and 2 deaths a day
What should we be paying attention to?
In our forums, you decide what we cover.