Why blame the train

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Bigval109

OBS Chief
Joined
Jul 25, 2006
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525
Location
Richmond VA
It rubs me the wrong way :angry: when the news media always seems to blame the train because a car or truck gets hit or when a person gets killed. The train is on it's track minding it's own business :rolleyes: when some fool is walking down the track and doesn't get off the track out of the train's way. Or a stupid driver :blink: of a car or truck tries to beat the train to a road grade crossing and loses. The news never says a stupid driver hits the train or truck races the train to the crossing and loses. Why not call it what it is?
 
It rubs me the wrong way :angry: when the news media always seems to blame the train because a car or truck gets hit or when a person gets killed. The train is on it's track minding it's own business :rolleyes: when some fool is walking down the track and doesn't get off the track out of the train's way. Or a stupid driver :blink: of a car or truck tries to beat the train to a road grade crossing and loses. The news never says a stupid driver hits the train or truck races the train to the crossing and loses. Why not call it what it is?
You wouldn't sell many papers or have an evening headline if the story started out, "Fool drives in front of train on purpose."
 
We see that so often. We photograph trains - especially Amtrak - whenever we can. It hardly EVER fails that we don't see someone

try to outrun them - even going around closed gates.

This Sunday we witnessed - caught on camera - a foolish pedestrian cross in front of #2 coming out of Lafayette yard.

http://www.pbase.com/bachinpops/image/110551079

Seeing things such as this is what made us become involved in the Opertion Lifesaver program.

Crossing in front of a freight is stuipidty, crossing in front of Amtrak..... that's insanity.

And it never fails, be it the newspaper or television..... the train is ALWAYS the blame.
 
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It rubs me the wrong way :angry: when the news media always seems to blame the train because a car or truck gets hit or when a person gets killed. The train is on it's track minding it's own business :rolleyes: when some fool is walking down the track and doesn't get off the track out of the train's way. Or a stupid driver :blink: of a car or truck tries to beat the train to a road grade crossing and loses. The news never says a stupid driver hits the train or truck races the train to the crossing and loses. Why not call it what it is?
You wouldn't sell many papers or have an evening headline if the story started out, "Fool drives in front of train on purpose."
That sounds like a way to get your quickly paper sued by the fool in question.
 
I saw one article state while reporting on an accident that the train was running 3 hours late as if to imply that the engineer was speeding and operating it recklessly due to it being late like some people do when driving. Sheessh....

Dan
 
Fact of the matter is, people don't like to be responsible. That includes, for example, local papers making local people seem responsible when an "outsider" such as a train is available to blame.

Take our current financial crisis. Yes, I know the banks shouldn't have been making loans to people who can't afford them, and then trading the severely dangerous risk around like it was some great new cosmetic creme and everyone wanted to be covered in it. Papers love laying it on thick to those big nasty investment banks who clearly forced people who couldn't afford loans to take them out.

Yeah, right. The American public doesn't like to acknowledge that, at the heart of it, this problem was primarily the fault of the American people trying to live so far beyond their means, they couldn't even see their means, let alone know what they were. They don't want to admit that John and Jane Q. Public are as much if not more to blame for their own irresponsible behavior. We found someone to blame, and it is a big faceless mass of "investment banks."

When one our own gets killed at a rail crossing, it is so much more comforting to blame it on the big faceless mass of a P42 locomotive and its big faceless corporate owner, Amtrak.
 
Fact of the matter is, people don't like to be responsible. That includes, for example, local papers making local people seem responsible when an "outsider" such as a train is available to blame.
Take our current financial crisis. Yes, I know the banks shouldn't have been making loans to people who can't afford them, and then trading the severely dangerous risk around like it was some great new cosmetic creme and everyone wanted to be covered in it. Papers love laying it on thick to those big nasty investment banks who clearly forced people who couldn't afford loans to take them out.

Yeah, right. The American public doesn't like to acknowledge that, at the heart of it, this problem was primarily the fault of the American people trying to live so far beyond their means, they couldn't even see their means, let alone know what they were. They don't want to admit that John and Jane Q. Public are as much if not more to blame for their own irresponsible behavior. We found someone to blame, and it is a big faceless mass of "investment banks."

When one our own gets killed at a rail crossing, it is so much more comforting to blame it on the big faceless mass of a P42 locomotive and its big faceless corporate owner, Amtrak.
Many of those home buyers did qualify for a more traditional (safer) loan, but were unknowingly steered into the bad loans.
 
Many of those home buyers did qualify for a more traditional (safer) loan, but were unknowingly steered into the bad loans.
Of course. I'm not exonerating a group disgusting greedy overpaid ****s. I'm just pointing out that they are not the sole cause of the problem, and if it wasn't for greedy, over spending people, it wouldn't have really been a problem.

Sure, a few people would have gotten screwed over, but it wouldn't have caused a cascading systems failure of the world economy.
 
It rubs me the wrong way :angry: when the news media always seems to blame the train because a car or truck gets hit or when a person gets killed.

Its not "Politically Correct" to ever blame the victim. :ph34r:
 
Many of those home buyers did qualify for a more traditional (safer) loan, but were unknowingly steered into the bad loans.
It amazes me that anyone could take Amtrak to their home closing, and sign mortgage papers with loan terms that they have no idea about or for their eventual financial consequences. :huh:

I watch on TV, families who have a total income of like $50K to $60K, who signed up for mortgages with a $3K to $4K a month payment. I mean, I would have had to be struck by an Acela train and suffered permanent brain damage, before I would sign up for that kind of commitment!
 
Many of those home buyers did qualify for a more traditional (safer) loan, but were unknowingly steered into the bad loans.
It amazes me that anyone could take Amtrak to their home closing, and sign mortgage papers with loan terms that they have no idea about or for their eventual financial consequences. :huh:

I watch on TV, families who have a total income of like $50K to $60K, who signed up for mortgages with a $3K to $4K a month payment. I mean, I would have had to be struck by an Acela train and suffered permanent brain damage, before I would sign up for that kind of commitment!
The guy next door made a home equity loan for $80,000 and he didn't even have a real job. He approved his own loan by joining some group thinking he was going to make a killing. He didn't and now he says he might lose his home. I told him to not risk his home which was paid for on one of these get rich quick schemes.
 
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