Faulty Drivers Should Pay For Train Damages
There are lots of stories about cars hitting trains and vice-versa, in particular light-rail trains that run ‘at grade’ - the same level as cars. What we often don’t hear a lot about it how often the cars are at fault. I don’t know what those numbers are, but I suspect they are high.
If and when someone either just screws up, or screws up while breaking the law, and that causes an accident and damage to a train and possibly injuries to riders and inconveniences riders, the driver who messed up should have to pay - them - their insurance company - whoever. Ideally, if they were deemed to be criminally negligent, they would have to pay for any and all injuries to everyone on the train and other innocent bystanders.
We expanded on a post by Streetsblog and suggested that car drivers should have to start paying their fair share for the incredible damage they cause - that goes for the damage they cause in accidents, too - not just losses to productivity and contributions to polluted air.
In this case, it seems we got lucky - nobody was seriously hurt. A 78-year old person was forced to drive a car because Phoenix area politicians, planners, and advocates failed her and the rest of the city’s residents for decades. You’ll have to ask the people who have been setting policy for the past fifty years why they wanted older folks confined to their homes and their cars.
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