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[quote user="Railway Man"] [quote user="Bucyrus"] Are we talking about on-board cameras that watch the track ahead, but not the crew, or are we talking about cameras that watch the crew?  I am not advocating on-board cameras watching the crew, but would they not add a measure of rules compliance?  Is it not probable that Sanchez would have refrained from text messaging if he knew a camera was watching him? [/quote]  On board cameras that watch the crew.  I don't see how on-board cameras that watch the crew can directly cause rules compliance unless there's going to be someone monitoring a video feed in real time.  Indirectly, the camera might induce rules compliance because someone is afraid of getting caught in a random check or being assigned all the blame after an accident occurs.  Random drug testing works the same way -- it doesn't stop anyone directly from taking drugs, nor does it prevent someone who is impaired from sitting in the engineer's seat, but also works after the fact and to incent behavior.  However, random drug testing effectivness is almost 100% viable because the drug leaves markers in the system later.  If someone invented a drug that left no traces 5 seconds after the effects on the user ended, random drug testing would be fairly useless.  Random drug testing is also a very curious quid pro quo society has made with its members -- it says, in effect, "I know you're not high right now when, but you were high last week some time, and who knows what you were doing then, and you might have been at work, and anyway we've all agreed that drug use is bad and should not occurred, and we've made it a condition of employment, so you're off to rehab and if that doesn't work, you're not meeting the conditions of employment and you're fired." It's not possible to show a direct reduction in probability that any specific person like Mr. Sanchez would be less likely to text message, if a camera was in place.  It is possible to use after-the-fact averages, but those predict only averages, not specific behavior by a specific person. PTC is a direct, pre-emptive enforcement tool, whereas in-cab cameras are an indirect, after-the-fact assignment-of-blame tool.  The camera doesn't stop anyone from engaging in unauthorized behavior, and most of the time the person doing the unauthorized behavior will never be caught, unless someone wants to sit there and review a few thousand hours of tape (I doubt it's possible to write a program to automate the process of reviewing video for all the myriad types of unauthorized behavior).  After a big accident, yes, someone will watch every last second of tape, but if someone never gets involved in a big accident, what's the chances that their bad behavior will be caught on camera?  Very, very low.  Whereas the chances that PTC will prevent an accident like Chatsworth are very, very high. It's legal to institute a policy that cameras will watch the crew.  There are plenty of examples -- grocery store cashiers, bank tellers, casino dealers, etc., who are monitored by camera.  However, unless the monitoring is real-time, or random looks are at least once a day for every crew for at least 15-30 minutes, its effectiveness as a railway safety tool might be nil.  In fact, it might be counterproductive because it encourages everyone who resents it to leave or not apply, and the remaining job applicant pool might be less desirable. RWM  [/quote] I understand your point that crew cameras would not be a positive deterrent to collisions, whereas PTC would be such a deterrent, and I am not advocating one over the other.  But it seems like crew cameras would be somewhat of a deterrent to conscious rule violations by the crew, even if the crew knew that their supervisors might not see their violation because the cameras are not continuously monitored. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p> I can imagine one downside of the crew camera concept is the cost of the system and its operation.  Another downside that I have heard is that the camera invades privacy.  I am baffled as to how that case can be made.
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