07-12-2017, 09:43 AM
(07-12-2017, 09:23 AM)urbd Wrote:(07-11-2017, 10:52 AM)Canard Wrote: I see the tweets about once a week about pedestrians getting hit and killed by GO trains, but sadly yesterday a pedestrian was hit and killed right in Kitchener, at Lancaster.
Wow. If it is at least once a week, isn't there anything that GO (or any authority for that matter) can do to prevent them? I mean if you know for sure that at least one person will die every week because of a service you are providing, I'm sure something could be done better to prevent it. This reminds me of the suicides at university campuses, and how university officials simply see them as "one more statistic", "on par with national averages", etc etc... well, if you know it's going to happen, why not be proactive and really try to prevent?
Depends on the situation. If the standard crossing design is confusing and doesn’t actually inform people to stay off the tracks, it may be able to be improved. But if people are committing suicide, there is little they can do. Remember, even saving lives must be done cost-effectively because we don’t live in an infinitely rich society. They could probably eliminate almost all suicides by having full grade separation everywhere, platform edge doors, and 10m high fences along every inch of the right of way, but this would not be a cost effective way of saving one life per week. A lot less money spent on other measures, say mental health resources, could save way more people.
Also don’t forget the non-money-cost downsides of any such measures taken. If we did install 10m high fences as I suggest, it’s hard to predict the outcome. Perhaps one more rider per week would be tipped over the edge from feeling depressed and almost suicidal to being actually suicidal by the depressing and uninteresting scenery outside the train windows. So it’s entirely possible that the huge investment wouldn’t actually save any lives at all.
I will say that, if it really was a suicide, I question the horn blowing by other trains. Unless there is a reason to believe that specific crossing is more likely now to have somebody on the tracks who would be inspired to remove themselves from the tracks by the horn, the horn does absolutely no good whatsoever other than to make whoever ordered the horns feel better (Note: there may be a reason, and if so then I withdraw my objection).
Ultimately, even something that is very safe may still kill the occasional person. This is hard to accept in a society where we have very little death through misadventure, but it is nevertheless an important truth about the nature of safety.