We already know Americans can't drive but with trains like... how do you mess up a straight line?
https://usafacts.org/articles/are-train-derailments-becoming...
> In 2024, there were 1,507 significant railway accidents in the EU, with a total of 750 people killed and 548 seriously injured.
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
One thing I learned working on a system that did train positioning for the 7 Line subway in NYC is that train systems are a lot more complicated than just straight lines. They are complicated networks with custom signaling and the trains don't necessarily travel on the usual side in the usual direction at all times.
That said, in this particular case it basically was just two straight lines side by side and one of the trains derailed and travelled into the path of the other track.
Trains don't often derail on straight sections, likely either someone fucked up really bad on rail maintenance or someone sabotaged the rail.
a high-speed train travelling from Malaga to Madrid derailed and crossed over onto another track
But of course you're not wrong, trains are vastly safer than private cars. If anyone uses this as evidence against having a proper rail system, they're ignorant.
But - until someone does that, there's no reason to make this about the US or cars vs. trains. It's borderline offensive to reflexively politicize this before anyone else had; it almost feels like you're intentionally trying to sow conflict, here.
0. Per 2024 stats from the NHTSA (https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/nhtsa-estimates-39345-t...)
Like I said, a pretty bad day.
Yes, a single car crash killing 150 people would make the news. It would be among the worst, if not the single worst, car accident of all time [0].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple-vehicle_collision
This is now how I interpreted "bad day", think it would be clearer to remove "day" if that's what you meant. Of course you're right in that it would be awful as a car accident, they simply don't happen that many as a time. Which is why our monkey brain's lack of emotional response to "many small cuts" vs "one big cut" incorrectly causes the belief that cars and e.g. coal/gas are much safer than they are.
In Europe, trains are 28 times safer than cars (fatalities per passenger-km).
(edit: I guess it's more of no-brainer on a train/bus when you don't have a seat belt)
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!
Are you one of the safety engineers? Have you discovered anything which isn't included in normal safety tests which should be?
I don't have data but 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.
I don't think it's a good use of mental energy to plan for a crash like this. You're better off using your brain cycles on hygiene or not losing your luggage.
The Italians designed it but won't run it at more than 300km/h in Italy citing local infrastructure concerns. I guess that leaves other countries to find the edge cases. I'll be interested to find out how fast it was going during the crash.
There are a lot of safety lessons embedded in these videos, which is why I like them. I also did a double take when I heard "semaphore"; its history goes back far longer than the ~century of software engineering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaphore
alphadatavault•4h ago