1 dead, over 100 hurt in train crash at New Jersey station

There seems to be a rush to point fingers. Let's wait for all the facts, then we can blame Christie. I hope this wasn't the case of another engineer texting or using his cellphone for entertainment.

While it is very tempting to quip that perhaps Chris Christie should have put the energy he expended on laughing his butt off about the politically motivated lane closures on the George Washington Bridge into making certain his state's trains were running more safely, the truth is the Positive Train Control System being talked about are going to take about 20 years and a boatload of money Jersey doesn't doesn't have to implement in its trains and the over 1000 miles of track that make up the New Jersey rail system.

The driver needs to be looked at very carefully.

I hope this wasn't the case of another engineer texting or using his cellphone for entertainment.

Maybe just Made in American junk or Made by Union Labor crap?

There seems to be a rush to point fingers.

The Donald has not yet revealed that Hillary Clinton is the cause ?

I hope this wasn't the case of another engineer texting or using his cellphone for entertainment.

I hope that was. That's the best possibility. Near Paris, we had a commuter train crash a few years ago and the company's execs were saying "Yes, human error..." to gain time and cover the big issue... Just like TEPCO, our train company had a culture of neglecting maintenance and covering incidents under the carpet. And now, it appears that all the lines are in awful conditions, so more accidents are likely.

The NTSB has been pressing for some version of the technology since at least 1990, and the industry is under government orders to install it, but regulators have repeatedly extended the deadline at railroads’ request. The target date is now the end of 2018.

Meanwhile, the death toll rises because of the regulators' inaction.

The train was not equipped with an inward-facing camera in the cab that could give a fuller picture of the operator’s actions.

The unions fight the installation of such cameras because they fear (rightfully) that the recordings could be used as grounds for termination. The railroads don't push back too hard against the unions on this issue because the expense of incorporating the cameras into a system that could survive a crash at all their manned stations on the train would cut into their profits.