Feds Order Amtrak To Turn On System That Would've Prevented Crash

McGruber writes: Last Tuesday evening, northbound Amtrak Northeast Regional train No. 188 derailed on a curve in Philadelphia, killing eight passengers. The train was traveling in excess of 100 mph, while the curve had a passenger-train speed limit of 50 mph. In response, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is issuing formal emergency orders that will require Amtrak to make sure automatic train control systems work Northbound through Philadelphia at and near the site of the derailment. The FRA is also requiring that Amtrak assess the risk of all curves along the NEC and increase the amount and frequency of speed limit signs along the railroad. FRA's emergency order is newsworthy because Amtrak's existing signal system could have been configured to prevent a train from exceeding speed limits, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Comments

Let's reform the oppressive laws of physics!

[mi]

Equality before Equations!!:

WASHINGTON, DC - President Obama announced in a Rose Garden press conference today that in light of the recent Amtrak accident he is calling on the Congress for bipartisan action on Physical Law Reform, and if they don’t act, he will.

Mr. Obama stated that if the Congress refuses to act on this reform of the laws of physics, he will sign an executive order repealing them outright and implement reform on his own. “Reforming these so-called ‘Laws of Nature’ is the right thing to do, and it will help working families and keep them safe.”

Said Mr. Obama: “The deadly Amtrak accident is just the latest example of how the GOP’s refusal to act has put many in danger with deadly consequences”.

“This reform will have immediate benefits from instantly efficient electric cars that no longer need to obey the ‘laws of thermodynamics and energy density’ to the being able to drive around a curve at high speed without needing so-called ‘Centripetal force’ to keep you on the tracks.”

Obama continued “So if the Congress refuses to act, I will issue an executive order repealing these so-called ‘laws of physics’, We cannot continue living in the past having to follow ‘Laws’ handed down from Sir Issac Newton over 300 hundred years ago, this is not who we are”.

“It’s time to put equality before equations, people instead of physics and fairness over formulas,” the president said.

Obama dismissed the simplistic Newton’s laws of motion as a holdovers from a bygone era of racism where the ‘majority’ felt they could impose their vision of the physical world on everyone else with their so-called ‘classical mechanics’.

In a related development, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued a statement that President Obama's Physical Law Reform does not violate the Constitutional separation of powers because the Founding Fathers didn’t foresee that people of the future would be so stupid as to fall for this kind of malarkey.

Re:No self driving trains?

[fisted]

It's on *rails*.

So what? Ruby is, and still it crashes all the time, too.

Re:No self driving trains?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> I love driving.

Yeah...could you pick me up and drop me off at work everyday? That would be gre..at.

Re:No self driving trains?

[MachineShedFred]

You want your car to get intoxicated for you?