I love you people.
I wish I knew how to quit you.
Is there not a thread for the train derailment?
Because, it happened again:
This is just crazy to me.
What’s even crazier…
Derailments have decreased substantially over the past five decades. Annual derailments are down from 6,328 in 1975, the first year the Bureau of Transportation Statistics began reporting such data.
So as common as they are, they happen far less frequently than they used to. To reiterate, over 6,000 derailments occurred in 1975, which was the first year that they began reporting that information. So I’d say that it’s very possible that it was worse before then.
I guess it’s a good thing that they’re decreasing, though I’m not sure if that might be partially because we are using the railways less. I think it would be useful to compare the number of railway trips and/or distance that trains travel compared to derailments to get a real idea about how safety has changed. Another good statistic…
Additionally, fatalities associated with railways have long been a rare occurrence. Recently, there have been fewer than 10 per year.
Although I call BS on this. The reason being, I live not far from an area where we have railways, and I recall stories about fatalities occurring frequently between trains and people (either in cars or on foot). It happens often enough that it’s barely news. If the statistic above is to be believed, a significant portion of the fatalities happening nationwide occur the next town over from me. It sounds to me like whoever wrote this article misinterpreted some data. And to be clear, they are talking about fatalities overall, not due to derailments, because…
Fatalities caused by derailments, as opposed to collisions or other forms of accidents, are even more infrequent. Between 2017 and 2021, there have only been six fatalities directly caused by derailments, according to data.
And just to make sure that I’m not misremembering, I did a quick Google search. And sure enough…
That’s three railway fatalities last year in my area, which accounts for 30% of such deaths last year if the statistics above are to be believed. And the previous year…
Is Kent, WA (where I used to ride the train daily for a while, mind you) responsible for such a large bulk of fatalities nationwide? Or is that just a garbage statistic? I did another search, and…
Railroad deaths totaled 893 in 2021, a 20% increase from the 2020 revised total of 744 and the highest since 2007.
A bit more than 10. I have no idea what the Kansas Star was trying to say there.
Reminds me of the plot of a Billy Crystal/Gregory Hines movie.
hiding the drugs within packages containing children’s items such as toy trucks, Halloween decorations and Disney items.
Oh, and the woman involved? I asked Google about her name – look what came up:
Denise Guyette said she was visiting family on the street when it happened.
Guyette said her heart breaks because of the unknown trauma experienced by the child.
Disabled Denver City Councilman Speaks Out After He Was Forced To Hoist Himself On Stage At Mandatory Debate
- The stage was not accessible to those with wheelchairs.
- The councilman had to drag himself onto the stage to avoid forfeiting election funds he’d received.
- After this, the organizers decided to move the debate to the floor in front of the stage.
- Why is the place inaccessbile in 2023 anyway?
What the ever-loving fuck?
It’s likely the stage was overlooked in designing (or retrofitting) access for the disabled.
Then why did that poor man have to drag himself onto the stage before they moved the debate down to the floor?
The Yavapai County Development Services building was designed and built without any sort of disabled access planning about ten years ago. This is the same department that approves planning and zoning for any building happening in the entire county, I cannot believe this was just a simple mistake.
You are a much nicer person than I am, but I’ve known that for a long time.
Honestly, I could see, perhaps, something being overlooked in a retrofit for a very old building. But in a building that’s only ten years old? No excuse.
And the outfit that organized the debate certainly knew of the councilman’s situation. This is a fine example of piss-poor planning. Again, no excuse.
The reason I said I thought that @running_coach coach is nicer than me applies to you as well.
I do not think it was piss-poor planning. I think it was deliberate and they would do it again if they thought they could get away with it.
Us disabled folks should just stay at home and not uglify the world by pretending we are also real people and deserving of any consideration. Old and disabled folks like me have given all we can so would better serve society by going away and not bothering anyone anymore.
I concur with you completely. I couldn’t compose such an eloquent response, I was too busy sputtering. Sadly, this is not an unusual experience for us with disabilities.
If I can be attentive to improving chair access issues at my house, with no chair using family or friends, a fucking government entity damn well can, and opens itself to allegations of deliberately ignoring the ADA.
I see what you mean there. The way I see it is that their stupidity is such that they did not even consider that there may be someone who requires accessibility. If it had been deliberate, they would not have limited it to choosing an inadequate locale; they would pound out something akin to Tan the Conman’s mocking of a disabled person’s disability.
In short, they’re just that fucking stupid.
The worst part for me was that they waited until he made it up onto the stage before they decided to hold the debate on the floor in front of it. So he had to maneuver himself down, too. Or so I presume.
An enterprising opponent could have seized the opportunity to score a few points with the attendees by simply trying to help the councilman get onstage. The article says no one helped him. Even offering to help would have gone a long way in some people’s minds.
Yeah. I’m still gobsmacked that nobody assisted or even offered. I’d imagine that there would be enough folks who could lift him and the chair onto the stage.
This was my first thought. My mom was in a wheel chair during her last years. It really isn’t that hard for a physically capable person to assist. Two strong people could just lift the councilman and the wheel chair up to the stage. I assume there are at least steps.
Ultimately, event organizers could not lift Hinds’s electric wheelchair onto the platform and the group held the debate on the floor in front of the stage.
So, how much does an electric wheelchair weigh? While it can range from as light as 33 lbs to as heavy as nearly 300 lbs, we’re going to break down what factors into the weight of a power wheelchair.
It would also be just about ‘perfectly’ individual as to what the specific person would want in a (horrible) situation like this. I just don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all solution to how best to respond.
Except to do exactly what the person in question – in this case, Councilman Chris Hinds – wants done.
I also live where there are a steady drip of people killed in collisions with trains. However, in 99.9% of those cases, the derailment (if there was one) was the result, not the cause, of the deaths.
Most deaths are due to poorly marked crossings (a declining problem AFAICT) and/or people thinking “I’ve got time to get across here” (either on foot or in a vehicle).
The article that I read said that his chair weighs 400 pounds.