The Value of Lives vs. the Cost of Technology

Yesterday, a devastating train wreck in Dupont, Washington took human lives and caused serious injuries to dozens of passengers when a southbound train on its maiden high-speed voyage was about to encounter a looming, yet preventable, mini-Titanic situation.

Approaching a curve at 80 miles per hour instead of the designated 30-mile per hour limit, the speeding train (Amtrak Cascades 501)  could not reverse the laws of physics as it spilled its passenger-laden rail cars helter-skelter into the woods, off an overpass, and onto an interstate.

The ensuing loss of life and injuries would not have occurred had the two new engines hauling these cars been equipped with fully operable GPS-guided Positive Train Control (PTC) technology.

These guidance and control systems automatically foresee the route ahead, calculate a train’s speed and, if excessive, gradually slow it or “stop it dead in its tracks.”  Better the train than its passengers.

However, Congressional lobbyists, Special Interest Groups, Federal Agency regulators, and the White House have delayed implementation of a Federal regulation that requires PTC systems to be installed on passenger rail lines nationally.

Too costly, they all lament.

Just what criteria did this within-the-Beltway group of individuals apply when it assigned a value to the potential for lives lost and maimed, as compared to the cost of a readily-available rail safety system?

Failure to move aggressively on this front highlights a badly skewed lack of balance between sane and effective regulation, its cost of implementation, public safety, and the insuperable power of lobbyists.