But it's really theoretical, and does not account for the passenger in front of you headed head-first into your throat.

PS: I laughed hard that xlbuttplug2 is answering to deadbabe. The internet lives!

But sitting backwards is very very uncomfortable if there is any kind of uneven acceleration, bumps, swaying, rolling, curvy tracks or whatever. Humans need to look forward at the horizon to get their visual stimuli aligned with their motion/balance sense in the inner ear. If that alignment isn't there, you will get seasick. Backwards makes this even worse.

Babies don't suffer from this, because closing your eyes helps, and infants don't have as strong a reaction to motions anyways, due to them usually being carried by their parents until walking age. So reverse baby seats only work for babies.

> I would imagine crashes on these high speed lines (which always seem to be run at a higher level of professionalism than the general networks) are rarest of all

If this crash is anything like the other ones, you might be surprised. Safety complacency tends to cause maintenance failures. Plus the low speed lines are less deadly since the total energy is proportional to velocity squared, and v is low.

In other words, it might be more helpful to look at it as "if they’re run at a higher level of standards, it’s because they have to be".

Statistically you’re probably right, but considering how many brain cycles we waste on non-essentials, it’s just as fun to waste them on this. That way you can start a nerdy conversation with your travel companions, and they can learn to travel without you next time.

In France and Japan, HSR has had zero fatalities in the entire period of operation.

In China, HSR had AFAIR one fatal crash, with 40 fatalities. Per passenger-mile, Chinese HSR is twice as safe as US air travel.

Most railway deaths in the EU are due to unauthorized people on the tracks or due to crossings. The actual number of passengers deaths has been really low in the past years.

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

In the EU it's safer than flying, with 0.5 deaths per 100 billion km/ passenger vs 3 deaths per 100 billion kms/ passenger. However, since an airplane flies at, let's say, six times the average speed of a train, the actual probability of dying during a 1-hour trip is almost 40 times more on a plane than on a train.

However, there were a number of problems - people didn't like sitting in them, people didn't like hearing that their seat wasn't as safe as the others, you can't get as many rows in unless you turn them all backwards, and the structure needs to be designed differently so then you need more spares.

Massive efforts are done to implement reforms to conform to EU standards, believing that that’s how the “superior” EU members do it (Germany, NL, Nordics…). But then I go there and I see that their system has nothing to do with the standards and they are not doing much to conform.

It’s fine, these reforms are often beneficial for Spain, and I do believe that generally being in the EU is a big win-win. Although sometimes it’s just a lot of unnecessary reshuffling at great cost.

A certain segment of the Spanish population really looks up to northern EU countries, or rather they feel a sense of inferiority. In practice there is not all that much to look up to and I believe Spain should be feel more confident. Many great things are prevented by the widespread belief that we are in a shitty country and that everyone is useless, but it is just not true.

This is the most likely outcome, but it is not as cut-and-dried as you are presenting it.

It could be a broken rail weld, it could be track sabotage, it could be a broken wheel or bogie... we don't know yet.

I'd say the same about the railway network. We don't know what happened yet.

Maybe if it's a trip I do once in a while. But going from Málaga to Madrid and back once a week, in a car, driving? Or Barcelona <> Madrid once a week? No, hard pass, I'd rather be driven by someone else, in a comfy carriage, where I can comfortably sleep or do other things in the meantime.

Me and thousands of others agree, otherwise we wouldn't have one of the most expansive train networks in the world. Spain might be larger than people think, driving to everywhere in the country while fun, isn't feasible for repeated trips, the distances are just too large.

With that said, every once in a while a road trip with a car is really nice, maybe every 1-2 years, and driving across Europe stopping when you see something interesting or driving towards interesting things you see in the distance. Hard to get that same "explorer" feeling with other modes of transportation :)

I may feel in control inside of my car, but it's up to the rest of the general populace to not T-bone me and kill me on every intersection and roundabout I pass. Every corner is a risk where someone can steer into my lane and cause a frontal collision. Every highway off-ramp, a suicidal driver may try to kill himself against my car. Every truck I pass is a possible burst tyre away from crushing me against the barriers. And that's outside of the car; pedestrians are at the whim of any vehicle.

Most people usually behave on the road, stick to driving legally, don't drink or do drugs behind the wheel, and can manage to stop safely in dangerous situations. However, I feel like many people overestimate how well they could control their car in a dangerous scenario.

I feel WAY more safe knowing that the vehicle is operated by trained professionals and there's an extremely robust system around them to ensure safety, rather than whatever semblance of control I think I have driving my car.

Since two trains collided, wouldn't that have happened regardless of the state of the railway tracks?

The biggest part then might be that they should have listened to the operators warnings and scheduled a proper re-inspection of the route once they started warning of issues.

As I mentioned before, this area was renovated last year, so attributing the accident to under-funding is highly unlikely. If the infrastructure happened to be the issue at the end, it might be because of different causes: eg. Planning the wrong materials for the amount of traffic / weather conditions / etc.

In general, when you talk about under-funding in the rail network it's often regional or small areas within the inter-city (larga distancia) and transport networks. High speed infrastructure is very well financed, it's not cheap to move trains close to 300 km/h.

Knowing this, you're still all over the thread trying to score political points while there are dead people still on the tracks. One quick glance on your posting history is all one needs to see that you're happy to take any chance to do so, apparently including the death of at least 39 people. You disgust me. Y te creerás un "español de los buenos". Felicidades, patriota.

The way I looked at it is that the first train derailing wasn't a big issue, I don't think it caused any injuries. What was really catastrophic was the impact with the second train.

Plane controls systems all live behind thin, deformable metal or plastic covers.

Trains aren't perfect, obv, but most train accidents reduce to "A human on the tracks fucked up". Drivers trying to maintain schedules by speeding, or vehicles or humans standing on rails where they had no business being (dodging crossing guards, suicide, etc).

> "[Prime Minister Donald] Tusk said that a military-grade C4 explosive device had been detonated on 15 November at about 21:00 (20:00 GMT) near the village of Mika."

> "The explosion, which happened as a freight train was passing, caused minor damage to a wagon floor. It was captured on CCTV."

> "Tusk said the train driver had not even noticed the incident."

> "A previous attempt to derail a train by placing a steel clamp on the rail had failed, he added."

> "The second act of sabotage, on 17 November, involved a train carrying 475 passengers having to suddenly brake because of damaged railway infrastructure, said Tusk."

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gknv8nxlzo