As a intercity truck driver for over 20 years, I can barely recall the message in the countless safety meetings I have attended. They become quite boring & repetitious; any safety message is usually lost in the wise - ass comments and degradation to a pissing contest.Not unlike the stewardess' safety announcements onboard an airliner. The end result is always the same: The safe drivers are those for whom safety is an instinct, not an instruction or a berating. Corporate culture DOES matter; the trucking companies I have worked for that are always pushing their drivers to GO - GO - GO, are the ones with the most accidents.( Mostly LTL, I would add.) After many years of trying to keep up with their ever - increasing demands, I made the decision to find a company where safety is second nature, and the only pressure I have is self - imposed. I have this luxury; many in the railroad business do not. I can only imagine the pressure to" run the trains on time" that exists in a commuter train operation. The contracts surely include minimum on - time performance standards; this criteria often extends to getting the unit ( or truck ) out of the shop and back on the road before all necessary maintenance work & checks are finished. Bad brakes are an EVERYDAY occurence in Trucking; the possibilities in Railroading are surely similar. As always, time is money. The proper Corporate culture is necessary to counteract this mentality.
I must also endorse the comments made by Cajon regarding idle speculation and premature conclusions. As noted by the engineering types among us, there is almost always a chain of events that lead up to a incident; the elimination of any one can forestall the incident, or at least lessen the impact. ( so to speak ) I'm sure the NTSB will find enough blame to spread around. BTW, Cajon is a veteran of on - board train service with BNSF and Amtrak, as well as an engineering graduate.