That’s the moral of the story regarding a fatal Southern California rail crash that occurred in September 2008 and helped ignite the issue of distracted driving.
“This accident demonstrates that we must find a way to wrap our arms around the pervasive problem of transportation operators using wireless devices while on the job, whether that job is driving a bus, flying an airplane, or operating a train,” National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Deborah Hersman said today.
NTSB announced that, surprise, cell phone distraction was at the root of the fatal incident in Chatsworth in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley that generated national media attention. The collision between a Metrolink commuter train and a Union Pacific freight train resulted in 25 deaths and more than 100 injuries, NTSB found that it could have completely been avoided.
Shortly after the crash, it was confirmed that the Metrolink operator had been sending and receiving cell phone text messages and making non-business related phone calls just prior to the crash. But today, NTSB also said in its accident report that the Union Pacific conductor had also been sending and receiving text messages while on duty. Both Metrolink and Union Pacific prohibit their employees from using wireless devices while operating trains. But such policies didn’t stop the Metrolink engineer or the Union Pacific Conductor.
The issue is of importance to the school transportation industry not only for the reason that school bus drivers have been made a target by the U.S. Department of Transportation as it attempts to reverse a national trend of driver distraction among motorists of both passenger and commercial vehicles. School buses, after all, are high profile and carry the nation’s most precious cargo. While publicly supporting a proposed ban of all cell phone usage by school bus drivers, some in the industry have bristled a bit. There’s the concern that two-way radios that are vital for communication between bus drivers and dispatch (and even law enforcement) might be prohibited. The folks in Ontario are fighting just such a measure as the province recently rolled up two-way bus radios under a new law to ban all drivers from talking or texting on hand-held mobile devices.
But people are people, so despite strict rules and regulations on the state and local school district levels, you just know that some, probably a limited few but still too many, school bus drivers continue to carry on personal phone or text conversations while behind the wheel.
Others think that, like with the school bus seat belt issue, states and the feds should pay more attention to the real problem: educating teen drivers. They, too, are being targeted for distracted driving, but this all serves as an important lesson for school transportation. Consider for one frightening moment that a quick text message while driving the school bus, that taking ones eyes off the road for just two seconds, results in collision that kills 20 school children.
