When we take a look back at mass murders and tragic accidents—the D.C. Metro and Air France flight crashes of last month or the Virginia Tech shooting of 2007, for instance—what outrages us the most? Is it the fact that so many people needlessly died in a preventable accident? Or is it because we knew that the tragedy could have befallen us and we are selfishly demanding, out of fear, that it never be allowed to happen again?
To me, the Metro crash is many things: a warning to a society heavily dependent on computers that even the most fail-safe systems may indeed fail; a case of possible managerial neglect of passenger safety; an egregious example of what can happen when crowded public transportation is starved of funds to buy reliable equipment; and the personification of heroism among both the passengers and the train operator, who did everything they could to minimize the tragedy.
Although the National Transportation Safety Board will not release its painstakingly thorough analysis for several months, the apparent cause of the crash seems to lie in a trackside circuit which flickered on and off so rapidly that its failure could not be detected by dispatchers. In the “off” mode, the circuit could not relay information about a train parked on a curve to the following train, causing it to rear-end the parked train under the control of computers. The train’s operator dutifully applied the emergency brake; but alas, since the train was traveling nearly sixty miles per hour and the curve limited her reaction time, not only did the train not have time to stop but she also did not have time to escape from the driver’s compartment.

Even though only nine people were killed in the crash, the number is dangerously misleading: this was a reverse-flow train during rush hour, meaning there were probably only a dozen people per car. Had it been two rush hour trains that had collided, casualties could potentially have numbered in the hundreds. And that is the most unsettling factor: the failed track circuit could have been anywhere at any time. There is no guarantee of safety.
True enough, there is no guarantee of safety anywhere. Each day in the United States, 119 people die in vehicular accidents. Considering that this is Metro’s first crash in which passengers were killed since 1982 (and that annual rail fatalities on occasion don’t exceed double digits), taking the train is way safer than driving. And undoubtedly more lives would be saved through programs that promote safer driving, rather than spending millions of dollars overhauling public transportation. But we have become acclimated to high road deaths because we understand that humans are directly responsible for most of them; on subways and airplanes and trains, everything is highly choreographed by computers. When a failure happens, it rattles our faith in the system.
I don’t necessarily think that lack of funding is a direct cause of the Metro crash, in the sense that throwing more money at the problem might not have prevented it. However, Metro also has to fix crumbling platforms, deal with increasingly crowded trains, and perfect its communication network. Those items could potentially cause a disaster in the future if not fixed. Metro is unique among mass transit systems: it has no dedicated source of funding, and each year it is involved in a tug of war between the District, the suburban Maryland and Virginia counties, the federal government, and the legislatures in Annapolis and Richmond. Political infighting and grandstanding are part of the reason why President Obama did not include Metro funding in next year’s budget—he wants to see some stability before opening the money faucet.
My point is that while certainly there are some tragedies which are preventable, terrible things can happen at any time and in the most controlled of environments. Part of the solution is to take the necessary precautions to ensure that disaster is not repeated; but the other part is an acceptance that the risk inherent in common behaviors can never be eliminated, only minimized. Millions of people taking minimal risks each day is what makes society work; the fact that we are so outraged when a handful of people die is a sign that the system is working. Nine deaths in 17 years is an accident; 119 deaths every day is a regrettable fact of life.




