Despite all the sturm und drang, the correspondents agree that they are concerned about the effects of fatigue and boredom on safety. This is an issue in all forms of transportation. Truck drivers are paid by the job, not by the hour, so they pop bennies to keep going. Airline pilots sometimes lose track of things, such as the Northwest Pair a few months ago. Humans are not good at monitoring; computers and automatic equipment are much better.

Rail is the only form of transportation that has the ability to put on the brakes if the train goes past a red signal. The technology has been around for some decades. Yet it is hardly ever installed. Too expensive, too complicated.

Surely in Europe, where they have invested heavily in passenger transport, they would have put this technology to work? But no, the British press reports that in Britain the number of SPADs (signal passed at danger) is in the hundreds every year. There was an accident in Belgium a few weeks ago. Another occurred in Luxembourg a few years ago. Each was caused by (or intensified by) a SPAD. The explanation is that, with a number of different countries and different types of railroad equipment, they have not been able to do it.

Back in the US, isn't it time to start installing PTC, or at least ATS, on these railroads, beginning with the ones that carry the most passenger traffic, i.e., the commuter railroads? It will cost dough. Let's find the dough and do it.