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Politics : Actual left/right wing discussion
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From: TimF11/8/2006 1:19:39 PM
   of 10087
 
Warning Signs For Trespassers

Yet another nutty jury has decided that it should be national policy to have warning signs every few feet on a railroad to warn trespassers against danger:

Jeffrey Klein and Brett Birdwell were 17 "when they trespassed onto railroad property and climbed atop a rail car" because they wanted to see the view from there. They were shocked by a 12,500-volt wire and severely injured. The incident took place in Lancaster, Pa. but through the miracle of forum selection the lawsuit against Amtrak and Norfolk Southern landed before a jury in Philadelphia, a locality notably more favorable for plaintiffs than Lancaster. An attorney said the railroads should have posted signs for the benefit of trespassers warning of the overhead hazard and also should have had the electricity turned off at the time.

This is by no means the first such verdict. I featured another here:

By the way, the exact wording on the complaint against the railroad is even better than I thought:

"The [engineer] did not stop the train in a timely manner, and failed to yield the right of way to a pedestrian walking along the tracks in plain view"

A freight train's topping distance is measured in miles, even with full emergency braking.

She and her attorney's further argue:

that the railroad was negligent for failing to post signs warning 'of the dangers of walking near train tracks and that the tracks were actively in use

Lets leave aside the obvious point about individual responsibility, and ask what would happen if this were the legal standard, to have such signs. To make sure someone saw one, you would have to have one say every 30 feet. Since there are just over 200,000 miles of freight railroads in the North America that works out to a bit over 35,000,000 signs that need to be posted. At $100 per sign this would cost $3.5 billion.

coyoteblog.com
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