The Los Angeles Times says the California high-speed rail project “is a train wreck” that has become “a monument to the ways poor planning, mismanagement and political interference can screw up major public works.” But the newspaper still favors “Obama’s inspiring vision of a nation crisscrossed by bullet trains, providing cleaner, safer and cheaper competition to airlines and reducing reliance on gas-guzzling automobiles” because “the benefits still outweigh the costs.”
Apparently, all it takes is a totally unrealistic vision to persuade people supposedly as sophisticated as the editors of the LA Times. The truth is bullet trains are far more expensive than airlines (75 cents vs. 15 cents a passenger mile); Amtrak’s safety record is far worse than the airlines (1.4 vs. 0.1 passenger fatalities per billion passenger miles); and cleaner depends on the energy source (and powering trains with renewable energy won’t help much if all those trains do is displace some other energy consumer who therefore relies on fossil fuels). As for “reducing reliance on gas-guzzling automobiles,” the state’s own extremely optimistic numbers show that California high-speed rail won’t displace more than 2 or 3 percent of the state’s auto driving; and by the time it is built, autos won’t be guzzling that much gas anyway.
Instead of giving the rah rah for an obsolete transportation system, the Times should look in its own backyard to see the real future of transportation. Google is asking the Nevada legislature to legalize driverless cars (go here if you don’t have a New York Times subscription and you’ve used your monthly quota). Google has also given a fellowship to Sebastian Thrun, the developer of Google’s driverless cars as well as the driverless Volkswagens that won the 2005 DARPA desert challenge and came in second in the 2007 DARPA urban challenge.
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These are great moves on Google’s part. Strategically, Nevada is a logical place to experiment with driverless legislation. On one hand, it has plenty of wide open spaces for cars to run in. On the other hand, it has many creative and innovative people who are likely to be early adopters of the technology.
Tactically, Google is positioning itself to be the leading developer of driverless-car software. Experience with the computer and smart-phone markets suggests there may be room for three different operating systems, but one is likely to take the lion’s share of the market. Steve Jobs and Steve Ballmer better hustle if Apple and Microsoft are going to be a part of this new technology.
Antiplanner:
Amtrak’s safety record is far worse than the airlines (1.4 vs. 0.1 passenger fatalities per billion passenger miles)
Where are these numbers from? They imply 8-9 deaths on Amtrak per year and 100+ on the airlines.
The major Amtrak wrecks were Bayou Canot, Chase, Bourbannais, and Salem IL (the only one Amtrak was at fault in), Williston VT, and Crescent City, and total 94 deaths. Including a handful of other accidents resulting in a single death, over the span of Amtrak’s existence, that implies a fatality rate about 1/3 of what you have.
Are you including highway fatalities from idiot drivers ignoring grade crossing warning signs and devices?
And on the other hand, I am sure your airline statistics are ignoring the massive death toll in the thousands in 9/11, Lockerbie, KAL 007, and other airline terrorist incidents. Do they even include the toll from overseas accidents with US airlines, like in Tenerife (583 dead)? The Amtrak numbers include Amtrak trains like the Montrealer which operate into Canada.
Andrew wrote:
The major Amtrak wrecks were Bayou Canot, Chase, Bourbannais, and Salem IL (the only one Amtrak was at fault in), Williston VT, and Crescent City, and total 94 deaths. Including a handful of other accidents resulting in a single death, over the span of Amtrak’s existence, that implies a fatality rate about 1/3 of what you have.
You forgot about the Silver Spring, Maryland wreck in 1996.
It does not matter in the least who was (or who was not) at fault in any crash involving a common carrier like the airlines and Amtrak (or, for that matter, transit bus, long-haul bus, charter bus or other types of passenger rail transportation), especially when discussing fatal or injury crashes.
Common carriers are (appropriately) held to a much higher standard than the driver of a private motor vehicle, and I believe Randal’s calculations are correct.
CPZ:
No I didn’t forget Silver Spring. Zero people on Amtrak died in the Silver Spring wreck, so it could hardly increase Amtrak’s fatality rate. If no Amtrak riders die in a crash, isn’t it obvious to you that it cannot possibly increase their fatality rate per passenger mile?
Randal’s numbers are clearly wrong because ~300 people have not died riding on Amtrak trains during the 40 years of its existence (40 years * 5 billion passenger miles per year * the alleged 1.4 fatalities per billion passenger miles).
And I think the issue of fault is important. The airlines get to pretend that 9/11 never happened for their fatality statistics, because it was an “Act of War”, even though nearly 3000 people were killed by their own incompetence at securing their planes, to say nothing of the ensuing wars and the yet to die emergency responders who will get sick from breathing the contaminated air at ground zero. Yet it appears to me that Amtrak is probably being credited with the deaths of non-riders such as tresspassers hit by trains and people who violate grade crossings in their vehicles and are killed in collisions, as well as blamed for deaths at places like Bayou Canot (a barge rammed a bridge and then took 20 minutes to tell the Coast Guard he had lost his barges), and Bourbannais (a semi-trailer driver on a suspended license tried to beat the train and ended up having his trailer load of steel hit by the train). Shouldn’t those 58 deaths really be charged against the guilty modes of transportation – shipping and the highways?
Yet it appears to me that Amtrak is probably being credited with the deaths of non-riders such as tresspassers hit by trains and people who violate grade crossings in their vehicles and are killed in collisions, as well as blamed for deaths at places like Bayou Canot (a barge rammed a bridge and then took 20 minutes to tell the Coast Guard he had lost his barges), and Bourbannais (a semi-trailer driver on a suspended license tried to beat the train and ended up having his trailer load of steel hit by the train). Shouldn’t those 58 deaths really be charged against the guilty modes of transportation – shipping and the highways?
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Apples to Oranges. If an airplane runs over a person on the ground at an airport it most certainly would be and is counted in airlines fatality stats. If a train gets highjacked and susequnetly people are killed it too would be treated as the 9/11 incident has been treated. If a plane had simply flown into a building due to a navigation system failure and not been purposefully flown into a building, then the recording of data would have been differnet. Furthermore, even pre-9/11 the government established security protocol for the airlines. The airlines did nothing that violated that protocol. Just for your information, box cutters and other sharp objects including small knives were allowed on planes prior to 9/11. If you knew anything about aviation you would know that.
The airline and Amtrak fatality numbers are from National Transportation Statistics. Because the numbers vary so much from year to year, I used the last ten years’ worth of data. Only on-board fatalities due to crashes are counted, not fatalities caused by people being hit by trains or people having, say, heart attacks on trains or planes.
PlanesnotTrains:
I think riders/drivers really care about their own risk of dying from travelling in a certain way. The fellow who fell out of the wheel well in Milton, MA after he stowed away on a plane is hardly a fatality risk for the normal airline traveller, and ditto for someone being run over at an airport. Same thing for people dying on the ground at the great Ramstein Airshow Disaster or from a crashing plane dropping on their house.
With 9/11, the guilt of the airlines is clear – they failed to secure the cockpits on their planes. Its irrelevant that sharp objects were allowed on planes. Hijacking had only been a known and ongoing risk for 35 years at that point. Its unconscionable that the the airlines had such lax security that someone could easily breach the cockpit and overpower the flight crew. All they needed was an unbreachable cockpit door.
Back to my point, Amtrak has had about 100 fatalities in 40 years, with half being in the single wreck at Bayou Canot. Airline flights serving the US have had around 5900 fatalities in around 70 fatal accidents, excluding deaths on the ground in 9/11, in line with their higher ridership. Cars and trucks and buses have of course killed millions.
Randal:
If the NTS is the source, that is very interesting then. The Amtrak numbers especially, because there has only been three fatal Amtrak accidents in the past 10 years I am aware of, so I don’t see where the 1.4 deaths per billion PM follows from, because it would imply 80 deaths over the past 10 years. Fatal Amtrak wrecks have included the following, with death totals including crew (a number of the 1 person fatality accidents are the engineer) – possibly I am missing a few:
Salem, IL (Panama Limited), 1971 – 11
East Palestine, OH (Broadway Limited), 1973 – 1
Shipman, VA (Crescent – operated by Southern Railroad), 1978 – 6
Williston, VT (Montrealer), 1984 – 5
McBee, SC (Silver Star), 1984 – 1
Queens, NY (Northeast Corridor), 1984 – 1
Chase, MD (Colonial), 1987 – 16
Lugoff, SC (Silver Star), 1991 – 8
Bayou Canot, AL (Sunset Limited), 1993 – 47
Smithfield, NC (Silver Star), 1994 – 1
Palo Verde, AZ (Sunset Limited), 1995 – 1
Bourbanais, IL (City of New Orleans), 1999 – 11
Nodaway, IA (California Zephyr), 2001 – 1
Crescent City, FL (Auto Train), 2002 – 4
Flora, MS (City of New Orleans), 2004 – 1
There is a report here from 1984 noting the various safety records of modes at that time (see page 13):
http://testimony.ost.dot.gov/test/pasttest/84test/riley3.PDF
The worst is personal cars at 1.32 per 100M passenger miles. Air, Bus, and Rail are all very low at 0.04 to 0.06. This makes me think Amtrak over the past 10 years at 1.4 per 1 billion passenger miles is a calculation error. I wonder if you meant to report 0.14 per billion, possibly? The numbers I show above would result in about 0.1 per billlion.
The NTS numbers in Table 2.42 include commuter train wrecks, which include the horrific Los Angeles Metrolink crashes in 2005 and 2008. It also only gives train mile numbers, so I am not sure where your denominator of passenger miles is coming from. The commuter train wrecks have nothing to do with Amtrak, and you specifically cite Amtrak above.
As to airlines, I show 847 dead in 11 fatal airline crashes 2000-2009 involving American origin and/or destination flights (i.e. international flights included), 4 of which were the 9/11 hijackings, and the rest being Air France Flight 4590 (the final Concorde flight), Alaska Air Flight 261, American Flight 587, Air Midwest Flight 5481, Comair Flight 5191, Colgan Air Flight 3407. 1990-1999 had 1462 dead in 15 crashes, 1980-1989 1474 dead in 19 crashes (including 2 KAL shootdowns by the Soviets and the Lockerbie bombing), 1970-1979 2066 dead in 22 crashes. Unless I have missed some crashes, of course.
That 850 airline deaths compared to around 8 trillion airline passenger miles is a rate of 0.11 per billion.
I think riders/drivers really care about their own risk of dying from travelling in a certain way. The fellow who fell out of the wheel well in Milton, MA after he stowed away on a plane is hardly a fatality risk for the normal airline traveller, and ditto for someone being run over at an airport. Same thing for people dying on the ground at the great Ramstein Airshow Disaster or from a crashing plane dropping on their house.
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Its not about the risk of the traveller. Safety statistics, as they relate to aviation fatalities, begin when an aircraft “intends to operate a flight and ends at the completion of such attempt.
With 9/11, the guilt of the airlines is clear – they failed to secure the cockpits on their planes.
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Airlines don’t make cockpit doors or locking mechanisms. Nor to they establish the criteria for said construction. How is it then that tehy can “fail to secure cockpits on their planes”?
Its irrelevant that sharp objects were allowed on planes.
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Its absolutely relevant.
Hijacking had only been a known and ongoing risk for 35 years at that point. Its unconscionable that the the airlines had such lax security that someone could easily breach the cockpit and overpower the flight crew. All they needed was an unbreachable cockpit door.
***************
Airlines have never been responsible for establishing security policy, they were simply responsible for funding the cost of security. Like I said, if you actually knew anything about aviation you would know this.
PlanesnotTrains:
Airlines don’t make cockpit doors or locking mechanisms. Nor to they establish the criteria for said construction. How is it then that tehy can “fail to secure cockpits on their planes�
Airlines specify, order, and operate planes, not the FAA or US Congress. Its up to the airlines to keep their property secure from mischief, just like any other property owner. That is certainly not the responsibility of the government.
If a person can breach the cockpit of a plane in flight and then purposefully crash the plane (this has also been attempted for insurance purposes by non-terrorists), there is obviously a huge safety problem and legal liability risk for the airlines.
The assets of American and United should rightfully belong to the victims of 9/11 as a result of the massive losses they suffered from the negiligence of the airlines, while the owners of those airlines should have been wiped out in the ensuing bankruptcy. The only reason those airlines still exist is federal intervention to prevent and limit lawsuits over their horrific operational and safety incompetence by way of Public Law 107-42 and its laughable pittances handed out for the wrongful deaths of 9/11.
Airlines have never been responsible for establishing security policy, they were simply responsible for funding the cost of security. Like I said, if you actually knew anything about aviation you would know this.
No one is asking them to establish security policy. The airlines should establish actual security of their property, especially that which can be used for widespread mischief and mayhem, just like any other business or person.
Your attempts to absolve the airlines of all legal responsibility for misuse of their property is laughable. What court do you think this argument would hold water in? Why would the FAA fine the airlines for security lapses if they were not responsible for securing their assets and passengers?
In the Lockerbie bombing, Pan Am was found guilty of willful misconduct and liabile to judgements in Federal Court.
http://articles.latimes.com/1992-07-11/news/mn-1480_1_willful-misconduct
In the 9/11 attack, the same courts have held that Larry Silverstein can sue the airlines for the value of the World Trade Center buildings. If the airlines really have no responsibilities or potential liability, this case would have been dismissed on first hearing.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/nyc-ruling-limits-airlines-liability-for-911.html
This article notes a $4.6 billion loss for airline insurers related to 9/11 claims.
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~kpukthua/publications/IJPL020401%20FLOURIS.pdf
Can’t have a claim with no responsibility, can you?
A lot of good discussion of the legal liability in 9/11 is here:
http://www2.gsu.edu/~rmipzb/911airlineliabilityanalysis.pdf
Keep in mind when reading this that the Fed Ex Express Flight 705 plot, where a disgruntled employee attempted to hijack a plane and fly it in the Fed Ex HQ building occurred in 1994. That means that what actually happened in 2001 was certainly forseeable by the airlines. There was also the uncovering of the Operation Bojinka plot to destroy US airliners by running them into buildings after hijacking that was uncovered in Manila in 1995, and the Tom Clancy Novel Debt of Honor from 1994 with the same premise of using an airplane as a weapon of destruction. I would therefore disagree with this author’s conculsion that hijackers flying a plane into a building was not forseeable.
Andrew, regarding planes & the WTC.
That was even a story line in the spin off The X Files, The Lone Gunmen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3WW6eoLcLI