Maybe it’s just the weather?
People are less likely to take public transport when its raining, and a mudslide onto the tracks, slippage etc, is more likely to happen if its wet.
That’d make no difference to planes though! I wonder if you was to check whether planes that crashed were underbooked, you’d find any interesting figures?
On further review, I’m going to stand with my original comment. It is possible that a valid statistical study might find a relationship between ridership and accidents on trains. A statistical study could indeed demonstrate correlation. However, statistics can’t speak to causation.
If the relationship exists (which hasn’t been shown yet), what might be the cause? Who knows. But there are a few reasonable theories here in the thread already. There is no reason to invoke the supernatural.
Fair enough, but there’s no real reason to invoke any explanation. As you say the relationship has not been shown to exist.
What if there are certain train runs that naturally attract low ridership because they’re at off-peak hours, i.e. the first train at 5 a.m. and the last at 11 p.m. Because of union seniority and such, experienced engineers can refuse to take these shifts, causing a disproportionate number of less-experienced staff, increasing the chance of accident. Fatal accidents aren’t that common and it would only take, say, two or three to create the perception of “higher risk implies low ridership implies magic psychic powers.”
I support those who point out that even if the correlation actually exists, there are several alternative explanations more credible than psychic abilities which themselves are too conveniently tenuous to test, anyway.