Please don't post like this on HN. This kind of comment is a generic tangent (and a rather ghoulish one), that can be made about any tragedy; yes, no matter how bad something is, there's always something worse. It's the fact that this is an unusual occurrence that makes it noteworthy. The guidelines ask us to converse curiously and avoid generic tangents and shallow dismissals. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
FWIW: a single car crash killing 21 people would still be newsworthy in America. And I think if you math it out with something per capita equivalent, this would actually be an exceptionally bad day/incident for the US.
But of course you're not wrong, trains are vastly safer than private cars. If anyone uses this as evidence against having a proper rail system, they're ignorant.
But - until someone does that, there's no reason to make this about the US or cars vs. trains. It's borderline offensive to reflexively politicize this before anyone else had; it almost feels like you're intentionally trying to sow conflict, here.
Right, so, mathing it out, the US has a population of around 340 million but Spain has a population of around 49 million. 340/49 is roughly 7, so the per capita equivalent in the US would be a single incident killing 21*7=147 people. So that'd be one incident killing 1.5x the average number of people usually killed across the rest of the country combined.
One thing I learned working on a system that did train positioning for the 7 Line subway in NYC is that train systems are a lot more complicated than just straight lines. They are complicated networks with custom signaling and the trains don't necessarily travel on the usual side in the usual direction at all times.
That said, in this particular case it basically was just two straight lines side by side and one of the trains derailed and travelled into the path of the other track.
Trains don't often derail on straight sections, likely either someone fucked up really bad on rail maintenance or someone sabotaged the rail.
The bulk of those are accidents involving railway crossings. There is a program to get rid of all level crossings in NL but it will take a lot of time and cost a ton of money. But there really is no way in which you can make a level crossing safe in combination with normal train speeds.
American trains are largely freight travelling long rural distances. You didn't mention it, so I presume because you didn't take it into account, so your statistics sound to me like they don't mean anything comparable.
Please don't post like this on HN. This kind of comment is a generic tangent (and a rather ghoulish one), that can be made about any tragedy; yes, no matter how bad something is, there's always something worse. It's the fact that this is an unusual occurrence that makes it noteworthy. The guidelines ask us to converse curiously and avoid generic tangents and shallow dismissals. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
FWIW: a single car crash killing 21 people would still be newsworthy in America. And I think if you math it out with something per capita equivalent, this would actually be an exceptionally bad day/incident for the US.
But of course you're not wrong, trains are vastly safer than private cars. If anyone uses this as evidence against having a proper rail system, they're ignorant.
But - until someone does that, there's no reason to make this about the US or cars vs. trains. It's borderline offensive to reflexively politicize this before anyone else had; it almost feels like you're intentionally trying to sow conflict, here.
~107 people die per day from car accidents in the USA [0].
0. Per 2024 stats from the NHTSA (https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/nhtsa-estimates-39345-t...)
Right, so, mathing it out, the US has a population of around 340 million but Spain has a population of around 49 million. 340/49 is roughly 7, so the per capita equivalent in the US would be a single incident killing 21*7=147 people. So that'd be one incident killing 1.5x the average number of people usually killed across the rest of the country combined.
Like I said, a pretty bad day.
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https://international-railway-safety-council.com/safety-stat...
In Europe, trains are 28 times safer than cars (fatalities per passenger-km).
The discourse here is more of a criticism of Puentes, who is a very controversial minister overseeing this.
Unusual for a train though.
We already know Americans can't drive but with trains like... how do you mess up a straight line?
> how do you mess up a straight line?
One thing I learned working on a system that did train positioning for the 7 Line subway in NYC is that train systems are a lot more complicated than just straight lines. They are complicated networks with custom signaling and the trains don't necessarily travel on the usual side in the usual direction at all times.
That said, in this particular case it basically was just two straight lines side by side and one of the trains derailed and travelled into the path of the other track.
Trains don't often derail on straight sections, likely either someone fucked up really bad on rail maintenance or someone sabotaged the rail.
> For the last decade, an average of 1,300 trains derailed each year (in the US), accounting for 61% of all train accidents.
https://usafacts.org/articles/are-train-derailments-becoming...
> In 2024, there were 1,507 significant railway accidents in the EU, with a total of 750 people killed and 548 seriously injured.
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derailment
I'm half-convinced our good friends the magic robots are totally defeating peoples' ability to read.
> In 2024, there were 1,507 significant railway accidents in the EU, with a total of 750 people killed and 548 seriously injured.
See the graph titled "Rail accidents by type of accident". There were 63 derailments in 2024; most of the accidents were non-fatal accidents of this type: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
The bulk of those are accidents involving railway crossings. There is a program to get rid of all level crossings in NL but it will take a lot of time and cost a ton of money. But there really is no way in which you can make a level crossing safe in combination with normal train speeds.
American trains are largely freight travelling long rural distances. You didn't mention it, so I presume because you didn't take it into account, so your statistics sound to me like they don't mean anything comparable.
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...when they come off the tracks.
a high-speed train travelling from Malaga to Madrid derailed and crossed over onto another track
Yes we know it derailed, that's not the answer to *how* it failed on a straight line.
How in the cause and effect sense, not which direction it went.