Posted by canvas on Sunday, 25 February 2007 00:18:13

Cornish, no offence - but you're going to have to contribute a little more than 'interpret the question as you wish' to get some dialogue going LoL :)

Posted by Votedave on Sunday, 25 February 2007 12:45:21

I think trains are safe in general - it's cars that are dangerous. Such accidents as the one in Cumbria are mercifully rare - but these things do happen occasionally in today's world.

 

Comment edited by Votedave on Sunday, 25 February 2007 12:45:40

Posted by Graham on Sunday, 25 February 2007 16:12:41

Why do you think that trains are not safe?

Consider for a moment, deaths on the UK's roads are around 3,200 a year and injuries around *ten times* that many. Yet people rarely hear about road accidents unless they're personally involved or they're particuarly spectacular or bloody.

Rail accidents, however, make for *great* media coverage. Dramatic pictures, carriages lying around the place, statements from Police and Accident Investigators and Hospital Staff, passengers describing their experiences etc etc etc, lots of stuff to splash across front pages or fill up time on 24 hour news channels.

But how bad were they? 1999 Ladbroke Grove - 31 deaths ; Hatfield 2000 - Four deaths; Selby 2001 - 10 deaths; Potters Bar 2002 - 7 deaths; Cumbria 2007 - 1 death.

Compared to road deaths these figures are minimal and don't forget that *more* people are using the railways than ever before.

Trains are *MUCH* safer than cars, yet after every rail accident, people see the media coverage and tend to move *back* to cars with no idea that they're putting themselves at much greater risk.

I think the question should be "How do we get more people back onto trains" and "What are the Tories' plans to encourage greater use of public transport?"

Posted by CornishEurals on Sunday, 25 February 2007 19:52:12

1 death is to many.

For every incident you describe, there has been a negligent reason for it.

Why are our train companies negligent?

Posted by Graham on Monday, 26 February 2007 00:27:08

> 1 death is to many.

"One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic." Joseph Stalin

3,200 deaths on the roads. How many of those are due to negligence? Negligence of the speed limit? Negligence of the drink driving laws? Negligence of the law against using a mobile phone?

Please note that I'm not defending negligence of Rail Maintenance companies, however please let's keep things in perspective here. Rail travel is still, by far, much safer than road travel, so let's not imply otherwise.

As regards the Rail Companies, most of the problems developed from the disastrous privatisation of the Rail Industry which resulted in some people making huge amounts of money from the public purse and laughing all the way to the bank whilst others were left to clean up the mess caused by decades of under-investment by the Government.

What needs to be done is for the Rail Industry to be turned into a "not-for-profit" company where any money made is ploughed back into services and maintenance and keeping down prices for travellers.

Unfortunately I don't see a Tory Government doing this any time soon.

Posted by CornishEurals on Monday, 26 February 2007 12:11:23

Again, thanks for the comments.

My question is yet to be answered though.

Why are the train companies negligent?

Posted by Svengali on Monday, 26 February 2007 12:44:18

I think the issue has been drastic lack of underfunding for many years and they are now playing catch up. However i think the biggest mistake they made when the privatised is to have the seperate company responsible for track maintenace. If a company wins the right to put there high speed service up and down a section of track, then they should also be responsible for condition of the track and maintenance. If they fail to keep that up to spec they loose the contract.

Posted by CornishEurals on Monday, 26 February 2007 19:35:19

Good point yet again and I totally agree that it may be appropriate for the train company supplying trains should also supply the track and the maintenance of that track.

However, that is not currently the case.

Also, when ever I go on a train it costs a fortune. My wife spent a lot of time in Austria and I used to joke about how flying to Brussles and then on to Vienna and then back to Brussels returning in the UK cost me less than money than the UK return train journeys to the airport.

So the trains are subsidised by the goverment, they charge us a fortune and they make a huge profit. So they have the money to invest.

Why are train companies negligent?