Laidoffsick posted:We've been running trains for more than a hundred years without PTC, Trip Optimizer and all that other stuff.
Nigh on two centuries now.
Yes, accidents happened prior to the implementation of the gee-whiz gear as the understanding of the needs matured. But accidents will continue happening after the implementation, too. No system is perfect.
It's a real shame, but it is the cost of mechanization, and nobody wants to go back to walking everywhere, so we accept the cost. Consider the number of deaths each year in automobile accidents. They vastly outnumber the deaths in rail accidents but rarely merit reporting and are largely ignored except by the people directly involved.
I know that people are working on self-driving cars, but I am not having any of it. I have experienced too many computer, network, and mechanical failures to allow a vehicle to control itself if I am in it. I will accept the (still fairly remote) chance of a fatal vehicle crash operated by someone who cares rather over the chances of such a crash operated by a machine that doesn't.
