Air Bag System to Reduce Railway Pedestrian Fatalities

[Murphy Siding]

Steve Raney

1. Note that with the 61,000 GBP cost per suicide, there may just be a economically sound case to spend $10,000 per locomotive on such protection. If the annual US cost is 500 fatalities * 61,000 GBP, that's approximately $47M per year in taxpayer subsidy for rail / pedestrian fatalities.

  Taxpayer subsidy? Huh? 

      Once the word gets around that you can't kill yourself dramatically by jumping in front of a train,  the potential suicides will have to settle for jumping in front of a semi truck.  How many gazillions of dollars will it take to equip every semi truck with a set of rubber buggy baby bumpers?

     And, if this is such a burning issue,  why don't we have safety nets under the Golden Gate Bridge?

[ValleyX]

Sounds like a cockamanie scheme to me, I'm sorry but exactly when and how would this deploy? Would it be the personal responsibility of the engineer to deploy this airbag if he sees trouble ahead? And, if the person gets up and walks away, you've got another problem, putting it all back together. And, as someone mentioned, what about wildlife? There's all sorts of wildlife out there, deer would surely make this deploy As bad as a segment of society seems to want to try anymore, you just can't save everyone from everything.

[GP40-2]

Mookie

Sounds like a thrilling ride to me! 

What ever happened to personal responsibility?  Now people will not only sue because they "should be prevented from walking in front of a train" but will sue for injuries from the air bag.

I am skeptical....

Oh, pleeaase...Get with the times Mookie. Why take personal responsibility when you can simply blame it on somebody else. Especially when that "somebody else" happens to have a lot of money. You are such a social dinosaur...LOL

[TomDiehl]

OK, somebody was watching Smash Lab on the Discovery Channel. However, their airbag was to push errant cars out of the way (unsuccessfully of course) of an oncoming train. Aired January 30, 2008, episode 4.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Smash_Lab_episodes

 

[Phoebe Vet]

I have been involved in the investigation of three one car fatal accidents that were caused by an air bag firing for no reason that we could determine.  One of them, witnessed by the driver of the car behind them, who heard and saw the air bag deploy.  The car turned right, ran off the highway and into a stand of trees, killing all four people in the car.

If I have been to three, how many do you suppose there have been?

You might be surprised how badly you can mangle a car and not be killed.

I cannot imagine an giant airbag on the front of a train being all that effective.

[BigJim]

Phoebe Vet

They could save a lot of lives and serious injuries every year if they took the airbags OUT of cars. 

Phoebe,
Maybe you shouldn't be so quick to make such statements.
I personally was sitting still at a road crossing, in double track territory, when a man in a new BMW decided to come around the crossing gates. He was promptly hit full broadside by an opposing train running about 30-35mph that he didn't take the time to look for! The only thing that saved this guy was the fact that the BMW had side impact air bags!

Those side impact bags quickly made a believer out of me!

I hope that man personally contacted BMW and thanked them for saving him from his own stupidity!

[samfp1943]

BaltACD

Mookie

Sounds like a thrilling ride to me! 

What ever happened to personal responsibility?  Now people will not only sue because they "should be prevented from walking in front of a train" but will sue for injuries from the air bag.

I am skeptical....

Don't forget all the suits from those who sustain catastrophic type injuries the leave them as para or quadriplegics....You must pay for my continuing medical care...I should be dead....

    Not sure about the national implications, but around here in 'fly-over'country; when a air bag is deployed you get a full emergency response.   Ambulance, cops and in a lot of cases, the fire dept as well.

 Pertinent link: http://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2008-17.html

  FTL: "...The safety bars came down, leaving the Porsche trapped on the rails. According to witnesses, it took the driver awhile to realize he was stuck. Finally he jumped from the car and started to run--straight toward the oncoming train, waving his arms in an attempt to save his expensive SUV!

The attempt was partly successful. The car received less damage than its owner, who landed 30 meters away. Attempts to revive him were unsuccessful.

The moral of the story? Momentum always wins...."

 

[BigJim]

What about the employees that get injured when one of these air bags accidentally deploy when adjusting a drawhead or such.

What is one to do? Run with this thing already deployed? 'Cause if it waits until impact to deploy, it's too late.

Think about it. This is just another really bad idea that we don't need.

[Phoebe Vet]

They could save a lot of lives and serious injuries every year if they took the airbags OUT of cars.  I can't imagine why they would want to put them on the front of a train.

Since airbags are very expensive, single use, and they will fire every time a train hits anything: a car, a branch that has drooped into the right of way, a cow, a deer in the middle of nowhere...

[BaltACD]

Mookie

Sounds like a thrilling ride to me! 

What ever happened to personal responsibility?  Now people will not only sue because they "should be prevented from walking in front of a train" but will sue for injuries from the air bag.

I am skeptical....

Don't forget all the suits from those who sustain catastrophic type injuries the leave them as para or quadriplegics....You must pay for my continuing medical care...I should be dead....

[Steve Raney]

1. Note that with the 61,000 GBP cost per suicide, there may just be a economically sound case to spend $10,000 per locomotive on such protection. If the annual US cost is 500 fatalities * 61,000 GBP, that's approximately $47M per year in taxpayer subsidy for rail / pedestrian fatalities.

2. Note also that the safety standard for new technologies is zero fatalities. IE if trains had been recently invented, they would have to be far safer. Likewise, if "cars on roads" had been recently invented, they would have to far safer.

3. If someone gets depressed and wants to have a "dramatic" suicide, then they will not substitute other, undramatic suicide methods. There's a complicated suicide psychology involved. These are preventable suicides where folks would NOT just pop pills as a substitute.

One conclusion from a study of folks who survived Golden Gate Bridge jumps. On the way down, they all concluded that they wanted to live.

[zugmann]

Mookie

I am skeptical....

 

You aren't the only one.  Sure, let's force companies to spend millions of dollars (and taxpayer money, mind you) because some morons are drunk, high, suicidal, or plain morons and walking where they shouldn't be.  

A lot cheaper to just hose off the front of the train when needed....

If someone wants to kill themselves enough that they step onto the tracks, then they WILL find a way to kill themselves.  And in the case of subways (Washington Metro, for example) they can just grab the third rail. 

[Mookie]

Sounds like a thrilling ride to me! 

What ever happened to personal responsibility?  Now people will not only sue because they "should be prevented from walking in front of a train" but will sue for injuries from the air bag.

I am skeptical....

[Steve Raney]

In the US in 2006, there were 500 fatal collisions between trains and pedestrians. Of these 500, about 360 were suicides. Psychologically speaking, these are “dramatic” suicides where less-dramatic suicide methods would not be substituted. These fatalities are devastating to families and to rail transit personnel. Rail transit systems experiencing frequent fatalities include: Caltrain, Amtrak Capitol Corridor, Washington DC Metrorail, and others. Rail pedestrian fatalities are also an international problem. The UK Rail Safety and Standards Board estimates the total cost of suicides (trackside and at stations) to the UK rail industry in 2003 was more than 11M GBP at 61,000 GBP cost per suicide. This cost includes delay to trains and lost working time as a result of trauma suffered by staff . Each year the UK experiences about 200 rail suicides. In 2008, there were 2,000 rail suicides in Japan. Germany experiences roughly 936 railway suicides per year. Australia has called for improved crashworthiness of trains.

A front-of-train air bag system shows promise in increasing rail safety. When inflated, the air bag system might be 15 feet long and 7 feet high. The system will be able to safely handle a collision between a pedestrian and a 60 mph locomotive, grabbing and holding the pedestrian until the locomotive comes to a stop. Collision physics calculations have been validated for a constant 20g deceleration. Such an air bag system will necessarily have a more complicated design than current in-vehicle automotive air bags. States a Principal Engineer at TRW Automotive: "I believe that this concept is possible. I believe that it would take quite a bit of development due to the volume of the 'bag' and the volatility of the propellants commonly used in air bag systems. We would need to perform a lot of experimentation but I overall I think it can be developed." In early 2010, the Federal Railroad Administration undertook a small study with somewhat promising results. A crash test dummy was collided with a steel plate with three automotive airbags reducing the damage.

Details:

1. Draft US federal transit research statement: (will be submitted in June, 2010) http://www.cities21.org/cms/tcrp_rail_airbag.pdf http://www.cities21.org/cms/tcrp_rail_airbag.doc

2. web site with related airbag safety patents, etc: http://www.cities21.org/cow_catcher.htm

3. See the December post: http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/p/165446/1821181.aspx

Note that FRA suggests that $10,000 cost per airbag system per locomotive might be economically feasible.