Suicide seems pretty far fectched on this one. Most suicidal people are not homocidal, except in certain situations among extremist religious or political fanatics. The very ethic, sense of duty, and culture of an engineer speaks against that premise, as well. Distraction is real, and bus and truck drivers are oftem victims of distracted driving, and are killed by it on a daily basis, often taking other victims with them, just not this many.

I'll note that the reporters and editorialist I've dealt with have been exceptionally careful and accurate on this story. I won't speak to the cell phone ban that the PUC took, until I take time to digest what it means. Political and legal grandstanding, I'm not shocked that would happen after an event of this magnitude. Now, the only question is will this result in positve change to prevent this in the future.

It really sucks to say it, but this operating a train is not playing around. A RR Engineer is a serious job and barring a finding that he had an incapacitating physical problem (and, yes, the autopsy should show investigators if that may have been a factor), this guy was doing something that seriously distracted him. It distracted him to such a degree that he was oblivious to the whole series of errors he committed, that lead to this. Having dealt with this issue on a traffic safety side, this sounds a lot like what the research (and our own personal experience?) tells us occurs when people are too focused on talking, dialing, or texting on communications devices while operating vehicles?