Metrolink Wreck

[Green Maned Lion]

Being distracted is so variable, though. I can drive my car with one hand while holding a cup of coffee in the other. (I have no cupholders). I've been doing this for years, including with stick-shifts. And I occassionally take a sip from the cup, too. I've met people who are completely incapable of properly driving a car while drinking coffee. It confounds me as to how, but they exist. Hell, I even did it with my Morgan.

So because some people can and others can't, you can't define what "distracted" can be, unless you purely put it in the hands of a police officer. Whereas if driving while talking on the phone illegal, well, its clear that you were doing it. You did it, you broke the law. Period.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Being distracted is so variable, though. I can drive my car with one hand while holding a cup of coffee in the other. (I have no cupholders). I've been doing this for years, including with stick-shifts. And I occassionally take a sip from the cup, too. I've met people who are completely incapable of properly driving a car while drinking coffee. It confounds me as to how, but they exist. Hell, I even did it with my Morgan.
So because some people can and others can't, you can't define what "distracted" can be, unless you purely put it in the hands of a police officer. Whereas if driving while talking on the phone illegal, well, its clear that you were doing it. You did it, you broke the law. Period.

There's a chapter in Richard Feynman's book ``What Do You Care What Other People Think?'' about the subject of how different people use different parts of their brain to count, and how this means that different people have different sets of tasks that they can't do while also counting.

I have seen people argue, also, that the legal limit for alcohol in the bloodstream while driving which states are required to adopt to get federal highway funding is somewhat lower than where the cutoff really is for where people start to be likely to be involved in serious accidents.

 

[WhoozOn1st]

L.A. Times:

Train engineer sent text message just before crash

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

I too have never been able to understand the reason for a text message when we already have voice mail technology.

The amount of time it takes from when I pick up my cell phone to when I have finished entering my password, hit the button to inform the voicemail system that I actually want to hear the voicemail message (apparently this is not actually obvious to the voicemail system), and listen to the message tends to be a lot longer than the amount of time it takes me to pick up my cell phone and read a text message.

If there are details like phone numbers in a voicemail message that I need to extract, I then need to listen to the message another one or two times to copy the details and make sure I got them right. If I have text, I can scroll through the message much more efficiently to find the details I need.

It also turns out to be somewhat easier to set up a computer to send a text message to my cell phone than it is to set up a computer to leave speech synthesized voicemail.

I do hate entering text messages from a 10 digit keypad on a cell phone, though I occasionally do so for short messages.

 

[user 1215]

I too have never been able to understand the reason for a text message when we already have voice mail technology.

I do hate entering text messages from a 10 digit keypad on a cell phone, though I occasionally do so for short messages.

I just got a blackberry and love it! Texts that come in that have a phone number can be dialed from the message. That's a great feature.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Blackberries are the Airplanes of communication. There is no place for them on earth. We should eliminate them with great prejudice.

 

[WhoozOn1st]

I appreciate that interest in this topic has waned with distance, but it remains a pretty big deal around here, and will be for years. This story is about lawyers who might be called "ambulance chasers."

After deadly Metrolink crash, aggressive lawyers swoop in

 

[George Harris]

And now we have this:

www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-traincrash4-2008oct04,0,6537656.story

Where three people who apparently know what they are talking about said that the signal was green.

 

[WhoozOn1st]

Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable. Everybody thinks they know what they're talking about.

Best, in my view, to wait for the results of the NTSB investigation.

 

[user 1215]

And now we have this:
www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-traincrash4-2008oct04,0,6537656.story

Where three people who apparently know what they are talking about said that the signal was green.

"They asked me all kinds of questions," including whether Sanchez had been using a cellphone, Atkinson said. He said he saw Sanchez using a train radio, but not a cellphone.

Can you really see the difference between a cell phone, a radio, whether or not he was texting in his lap, etc from the platform into the cab of a locomotive? If he were in a cab car, that'd be semi-understandable, but in a loco?

 

[HP_Lovecraft]

I'm sure the engineer was using a radio while at the station, since they usually have to coordinate with the conductor to know when they are all loaded, and ready to move.

The issue with the lights is curious though.

There is always the odd possibilty that there was a reflection from a green light elsewhere, or traffic lights, or some optical illusion?

Plus, as the article hints at, they could be lying to protect a friend, or to protect the train industry in general?

Or, perhaps the light was green, moving the fault from a "bad engineer", to the state itself, which greatly increases exposure to liability?

 

[AlanB]

Or, perhaps the light was green, moving the fault from a "bad engineer", to the state itself, which greatly increases exposure to liability?

Whatever the NTSB decides caused the accident, might move the liability around among the various players. But nothing can increase the liability, which is capped at $200 Million for all claims against this accident. That is Federal cap for any and all cliams arising out of the accident.

 

[user 1215]

I'm sure the engineer was using a radio while at the station, since they usually have to coordinate with the conductor to know when they are all loaded, and ready to move.

Are we that far behind? How simple is it to have a light in the cab that shows that the doors are all completely closed, followed by a buzzer by the conductor to visually verify all aboard?

 

[George Harris]

We are really off into useless speculation, a lot of it with ignorance of the basic nuts and bolts of how Metrolink operates.

 

[GG-1]

We are really off into useless speculation, a lot of it with ignorance of the basic nuts and bolts of how Metrolink operates.

Mahalo George

Access at my daughters house is difficult Just read the newest posts, It is time to wait to know the whole truth.

Aloha

 

[WhoozOn1st]

Not really dredging up history here. The 12-3-08 L.A. Times has this article about some possible new factors involved in last September's Metrolink/UP cornfield meet outside Chatsworth:

Train Crash Light at Issue

"The red signal near the Chatsworth Metrolink station was less clear than yellow and green ones, probe finds."

The online story includes a video that features trains operating in the wreck area, views of the signals at issue, and a brief interview with an NTSB person.

 

[GG-1]

Not really dredging up history here. The 12-3-08 L.A. Times has this article about some possible new factors involved in last September's Metrolink/UP cornfield meet outside Chatsworth:

Mahalo for that piece.

Seems that one thing was funny. Said first flashing yellow, then a solid yellow, and the the red where he was supposed to stop. But then the reporter did mention the stop in the station with the red being a mile up and visible.

Seems to convey a major mystery, Why did he depart the station that day?

Again Mahalo and Aloha

 

[AlanB]

Not really dredging up history here. The 12-3-08 L.A. Times has this article about some possible new factors involved in last September's Metrolink/UP cornfield meet outside Chatsworth:

Mahalo for that piece.

Seems that one thing was funny. Said first flashing yellow, then a solid yellow, and the the red where he was supposed to stop. But then the reporter did mention the stop in the station with the red being a mile up and visible.

Seems to convey a major mystery, Why did he depart the station that day?

Again Mahalo and Aloha

Because you stop near the signal, not a mile away from the red signal. Especially since in some cases, being that far away from the red signal might find the rear of the train still in the last block (ie. past the yellow signal). That would leave the signal behind you red, preventing another train from moving further up the tline and perhaps fouling a needed switch.

 

[spacecadet]

Not really dredging up history here. The 12-3-08 L.A. Times has this article about some possible new factors involved in last September's Metrolink/UP cornfield meet outside Chatsworth:

Mahalo for that piece.

Seems that one thing was funny. Said first flashing yellow, then a solid yellow, and the the red where he was supposed to stop. But then the reporter did mention the stop in the station with the red being a mile up and visible.

Not to mention that there's a shot of the signal with a telephoto lens from a good distance away, and the red light is clearly visible even in a little low quality video player window.

This story seems to basically mirror what I read on what amounts to a conspiracy theory web site a while back - I'm not sure if it was linked earlier here (14 pages!), but this signal theory has been going around for a while now. It seems to me that at best it might be a contributing factor, but that was bright sunlight that they just showed that signal under and I could see it fine.

 

[amtrakwolverine]

Not really dredging up history here. The 12-3-08 L.A. Times has this article about some possible new factors involved in last September's Metrolink/UP cornfield meet outside Chatsworth:

Mahalo for that piece.

Seems that one thing was funny. Said first flashing yellow, then a solid yellow, and the the red where he was supposed to stop. But then the reporter did mention the stop in the station with the red being a mile up and visible.

Seems to convey a major mystery, Why did he depart the station that day?

Again Mahalo and Aloha

Because you stop near the signal, not a mile away from the red signal. Especially since in some cases, being that far away from the red signal might find the rear of the train still in the last block (ie. past the yellow signal). That would leave the signal behind you red, preventing another train from moving further up the tline and perhaps fouling a needed switch.

reports say that the train normally will wait at the station for the daily UP to pass so why didn't he wait at the station.

 

[GG-1]

Not really dredging up history here. The 12-3-08 L.A. Times has this article about some possible new factors involved in last September's Metrolink/UP cornfield meet outside Chatsworth:

Mahalo for that piece.

Seems that one thing was funny. Said first flashing yellow, then a solid yellow, and the the red where he was supposed to stop. But then the reporter did mention the stop in the station with the red being a mile up and visible.

Seems to convey a major mystery, Why did he depart the station that day?

Again Mahalo and Aloha

Because you stop near the signal, not a mile away from the red signal. Especially since in some cases, being that far away from the red signal might find the rear of the train still in the last block (ie. past the yellow signal). That would leave the signal behind you red, preventing another train from moving further up the tline and perhaps fouling a needed switch.

reports say that the train normally will wait at the station for the daily UP to pass so why didn't he wait at the station.

Aloha

Alan's comment make sense but I read in several reports, Like Kiss Alive, that, that meet in the station was a daily occurrence. I remember an Amtrak train pulling up to the signal and the end of a passing siding at San Jaun Capistrano to wait for a metrolink train, I am sure that the Amtrak train was fouling cross streets there.

So we still need to let the experts finish their investigation, may god or whatever guide them safely to the correct answer.

 

[WhoozOn1st]

Don't know if we're in for a spate of reports about the wreck, but this one was in the 12-4-08 L.A. Times:

No drugs, alcohol found in body of engineer

Regarding comments above about the UP freight meets, IIRC Chatsworth was a common point, but not the only one, depending on the daily freight's progress.

 

[user 1215]

I find the inability to see the red light irrelevant. In the absence of a clear signal, you stop, contact a dispatcher, then proceed as guided. Those are the rules.

I'm thankful to see that the autopsy came in to be drug and medication-free. However, an autopsy cannot determine one's mental condition.

If anything, now there are more questions that need to be answered...

 

[AlanB]

And now just to add to the confusion and questions:

The conductor aboard the commuter train that collided with a freight train in September told investigators the warning light along the track was green before the crash that killed 25 people, his attorney said Thursday (Dec. 4).

The full story from the UTU's website can be found here.

 

[WhoozOn1st]

Don't know if we're in for a spate of reports about the wreck

Does three days in a row constitute a "spate?"

12-5-08 L.A. Times story, a more comprehensive version of the AP story (lifted from the Times) on the UTU site:

Signal was green, says crewman

It includes a reprise of the earlier video.