Virginia Beach Personal Injury Lawyer - railroad crash

Feds Ban Cell Phone & PDA Use in Railroad Operations Under Emergency Order-Effective October 27, 2008

Rick Shapiro — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 12:30:44 GMT

In the wake of the Metrolink passenger rail collision-the worst and most deadly rail accident in over 10 years-the federal Railroad administration (FRA) issued an emergency order that takes effect October 27, 2008 and restricts the use of cell phones, PDAs and other wireless communication devices by operating train crews. On October 7, 2008 the emergency order, no. 26, outlined all of the emergency regulations.

As I reported in an earlier article/call to action I wrote on September 19, 2008, no federal regulations restricted the use of cell phones up until this emergency order. Amazing, but true.

The uses of electronic devices restricted by the Emergency Order include:

the use of a mobile telephone or another electronic or electrical device to conduct an oral communication;
placing or receiving a telephone call;
sending or reading an electronic mail message or text message;
playing a game;
navigating the Internet;
playing, viewing, or listening to a video;
playing, viewing, or listening to a television broadcast;
playing or listening to a radio broadcast other than a radio broadcast by a railroad;
playing or listening to music;
executing a computational function; and
performing any other function that is not necessary for the health or safety of the person and that entails the risk of distracting the employee from a safety-critical task.

All personal electronic devices; electronic devices not supplied by the railroad must be turned off and any electronic earpieces must be removed while a train is moving; the only exceptions cover when radio failure occurs, wireless communication devices may be used in accordance with railroad rules and instructions, and emergency use of such devices to report safety issues.

One exception among several is that an operating employee other than a locomotive engineer may use a railroad-supplied mobile telephone or remote computing device in the cab of a locomotive for an authorized business purpose, after a safety briefing, provided that all assigned personnel in the crew agree that it is safe to do so. Keep in mind that the nation's railroads have been pushing for years to reduce the total crew members on trains--most trains are down to 2 crew members-even trains miles long! The railroads have been seeking to only have 1 crew member on many railroad jobs. I suppose if the crew is down to 1, that crew member can ask his or her alter ego if its safe to use the cell phone to contact management!

New rules even apply for train crew members not inside a locomotive, but working at ground level. For freight train crewmembers, a railroad operating employee may not use a railroad-supplied electronic or electrical device for an approved business purpose while on duty outside the cab unless the following conditions are met: (1) the employee is not fouling a track; (2) no switching operation is underway; (3) no other safety duties are presently required; and (4) all members of the crew have been briefed that operations are suspended.

The Emergency Order does not restrict uses electronic gauges or controls on a dashboard or control panel, and railroad supplied remote control devices have special provisions also.

Willful violations of the Emergency Order could subject the violator to substantial civil penalties. The FRA can move to disqualify a violator from performing safety-sensitive service temporarily or permanently.

The main rail union representing railroad engineers is the BLET, and the union's National President Ed Rodzwicz said, "sadly, the use of electronic devices has literally become a life and death issue for all operating employees and compliance with the Emergency Order must be absolute."

Interestingly, the FRA had been considering cellphone regulations since at least as early as 2004. The FRA outlined in the Federal Register notice how suggested cell phone restrictions had been discussed by FRA with rail management and rail unionis between 2004 and as recently as May, 2008 in formal meetings. The FRA outlined a considerable number of incidents between 2000 and 2006 in which cell phone use was directly implicated in a train accident, or at least was a possible contributing cause. What I find notable is that the FRA enacted not one regulation during the four year period before the Metrolink disaster where the specifics about what exact regulations were needed, and only after this terrible disaster involving the engineer possibly texting during his train operation did FRA finally publish this Emergency Order, published at the Federal Register, October 7, 2008 at 58702 -- 58708.

My take: everyone in the railroad industry involved in train operations was aware that cell phone use was rampant, and in need of control. The FRA needs to wake up and understand that sometimes federal agencies must do things that are not necessarily favored by any of its constituency, but that public safety demands. On a related front, wrecks like this involving one crew member missing a key signal underscore why its critical to have 2 crew in the locomotive-just like on a commercial jet.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Rick Shapiro

Train Crash May Underscore Need to Swift Implementation of Positive Train Controls for Major Railroads (Part Two of Three in Series)

Rick Shapiro — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 10:36:00 GMT

[This is Part two of three in this series]

The recent 2008 Los Angeles/Chatsworth train/railroad disaster serves to underscore the need for immediate regulation and implementation of Positive Train Control(automatic stop) systems for railroads in order to avoid death and injury to both passengers and the general public. Secondarily, it may be appropriate to implement restrictions on how and when railroad management and crew use cell phones/or handle text messages during train operations, as texting may have caused the Chatsworth train wreck according to investigators. Our personal injury law firm lawyers though based in Virginia, are active on a national basis in railroad safety/injury issues, with John Cooper serving as chair of the railroad injury lawyers section of the American Association for Justice until summer, 2009, and this author previously serving the same post. As active personal injury lawyers for rail workers, and for families in wrongful death railroad injury cases, we and the AAJ have also been involved in pushing railroad safety for years, and we have written extensively about railroad crossing safety law. The 2008 Chatsworth train collision occured at 16:23 PDT (23:23 UTC) on September 12, 2008, when a Union Pacific freight train and a Metrolink commuter train collided head-on in the Chatsworth district of Los Angeles, California, in the United States. The collision is the deadliest railway accident in Metrolink's history, and the worst in the United States since the Big Bayou Canot train disaster in 1993.

Railroad transportation, though the source of federal regulation mainly by the Federal Railroad Administration, has come under increased scrutiny over the years by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), charged with investigating major transportation incidents (i.e. train/railroad derailments, crashes, collisions, airplane crashes, etc.). Although technology exists to prevent head-on train/railroad collisions, the Railroads have almost unanimously refused to adopt this technology to make railway travel safe, mainly due to expense. The NTSB has been urging Railroad Companies to adopt these safety systems for over twenty years. The NTSB found in their investigative report for a prior April 23, 2002, Placentia, CA train collision that the absence of these safety systems was a contributing cause of the tragic collision. But the NTSB has no teeth, only recommendations. And the FRA has been known as one of the weakest federal regulatory agencies for many years.

What have commuter railroads done in the way of positive/automatic train control/stop systems? A spokesman for the nation's largest commuter rail operation, the Long Island Rail Road in New York, said that it had studied Positive Train Control, but decided to stick with its "automatic speed control system," a form of cab signalling with automatic train stop using technology that is more than 50 years old. The San Diego, California COASTER commuter line also has an automatic train stop system that its spokesman said will stop the train automatically if the engineer fails to stop at a red stop signal.Boston's MBTA says its "Cab Signal with Positive Stop" system can stop a train that passes a stop signal, or when another train is in its path; the system averted disaster in March 2008 when it stopped a train heading for a runaway freight car.The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the SEPTA system in its region has Automatic Train Control on 80% of its system, and will install it in the other 20% by 2014.

As for freight railroads, a Norfolk Southern news release in 2006 stated: “The railroad industry has been evaluating positive train control systems for many years, and OTC is Norfolk Southern’s version of this. We expect to complete the first phase of our pilot project late this year. [2006]” Apparently, NS is still testing prototypes and the system is not active except in testing.

According to an FRA news release current as of April, 2008, On March 7, 2005, FRA published regulations regarding Performance Standards for Processor-Based Signal and Train Control Systems located in Title 49 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 236, Subpart H. A working group of the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee (RSAC) first developed these performance-based regulations which require a railroad demonstrate with a high degree of confidence, that the risks associated with a new product being implemented are less than or equal to the risks associated with the product that is being replaced. The performance-based regulations became effective June 6, 2005. The new regulations support the introduction of innovative technology, including systems utilizing computers and radio data links, to accomplish positive train control (PTC) functions. According to the FRA, there are currently 11 different PTC projects in one stage or another of development and implementation, involving nine different railroads, in at least 16 different states, and consisting of over 4,000 track miles.

However, due to the September, 2008 Metrolink-UP crash, Congressional leaders may now clamor for implementation deadlines for positive train control. It appears to this author that FRA needs to immediately take a more active role in deciding which control systems are the “best” and weeding out some of the systems that have not proven workable. A review of the FRA release shows that a large number of technologies are vying for the “prize” but this is kind of akin to betamax versus VHS technology-decisions must be made that make sense and that unify protocols for these computerized systems, especially because some railroads share tracks.

My Take: The bottom line is this technology is moving into implementation way too slowly and the clarion call has arrived. Too many deaths, and too little action.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Rick Shapiro

Should The Federal Railroad Administration Enact Regulations on Cell Phone Use By Railroad Management and Transportation Crews in Light of Metrolink-UP Disaster?

Rick Shapiro — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 10:36:02 GMT

[Part Three of this series]

According the the New York Times, Sanchez, may have been exchanging text messages on his cell phone in the minutes before his commuter train smashed into the freight train. Two young men, who were rail/train buffs, told KCBS-TV that they had taken part in the text messages with the engineer right before the crash, and are cooperating with investigators. Sanchez died in the crash, but investigators are examining the cell phone company data. Twenty-four bodies were recovered from the scene, and two victims who had been pulled out alive died at nearby hospital in the following days A total of 135 were reported injured, 47 of them critically. Approximately 100 people were taken to hospitals, with 40 of them medevaced by air ambulance helicopters.

The use of cell phones and sending/receiving text messages by railroad management to crews, or by transportation crews and others, has not been a subject of federal regulation to date. However the Public Utilities Commision of California passed a temporary order banning train operators from using cell phones on duty (in September 2008) in response to the Chatsworth-Metrolink-UP train crash disaster. The order came one day after investigators confirmed that the engineer, Robert Sanchez, was texting while on duty-even though there is no confirmation of whether he was texting at the critical moments where he passed by the visible “stop” signal in question. Due to questions about the jurisdiction of the State of California to regulate interstate railroads (The Federal Railroad Administration is the federal regulatory authority of train operations) it is unclear if the new California order will apply to interstate railroads at all.

A remarkable new British Study found that the reaction times of people texting as they drove cars fell by 35 percent, while those who had consumed the legal limit of alcohol, or smoked pot/marijuana, fell by 21 percent and 12 percent respectively. Texting while driving is more dangerous than being drunk or stoned!

Certainly, it is distracting to a locomotive/train engineer to receive a cell phone call or text from a supervisor, for example. Further, since there are no federal railroad regulations on cell phone use at this time, one can only expect a railroad engineer to occasionally use a cell phone as a means of communications (just like we do in cars) UNTIL the federal railroad administration sets down regulations on their use.

According to the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen rail workers union (BLET) in 2003, the NTSB recommended that the Federal Railroad Administration regulate the use of cell phones by railroad employees on duty after finding that a coal train engineer's phone use contributed to a May 2002 accident in which two freight trains collided head-on near Clarendon, Texas. The coal train engineer was killed and the conductor and engineer of the other train were critically injured. The BLET union represents many of the nation’s railroad engineers, and their website does not indicate the union’s position on banning or regulating cell phone usage during train operations.

My take: The Federal Railroad Administration needs to regulate this issue, and clearly the unions and management will have their input on the nature of the restrictions. Safety demands that controls be implemented at to when and how cell phones may be used as an outright ban would not work, especially relating to use of mobile phones for a specific emergency or safety purpose.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Rick Shapiro