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Comment by lol768 | Hacker News Reader

Railroad deaths and injuries per capita are much lower than in the USA. I'd say the unions and RAIB have done a pretty good job at improving safety standards.

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Ah, but railroad workers in the US are also part of a union/unions, with arguably even more rules and regulations and very averse to technological advances, since it reduces the need for manual labor. So yeah USA would have more deaths because everything is manual and archaic, whereas in the UK you have things like the DLR, it could never happen in the US.

The DLR is only automated because it's brand new. It replaced nobodies job. And even that was a real fight to get and caused lots of strikes.

Of course, but try to add an automated line to the new york subway.

That would free the people to do the job of "conductor", "nanny", security, and cleaner to make that mess a less icky experience. Morale boost!

TfL brought level 2 GoA to a few Tube lines. In the US newer subway systems are already at that level. DLR is GoA 3, and a few smaller lines in the US (e.g. Las Vegas Monorail, Miami's thing, pretty much all airport people movers) are Level 4.

Yes, newer ones don’t have the same problem, since they are not held back by the rules of a union. Sadly those are few and far between, and I haven’t heard of a new railroad line since the yet to be finished CHSR, though can’t blame that one on the unions.

Dude. What the fuck are you on about?

BART and Muni are both union shops. I don't know if SMART is but it postdates the HSR proposals.

As someone who lived through Muni's transition to SelTrac (the system that underpins DLR and I think some of the Tube lines) I can say the union was not the problem. The technology was unreliable and eventually abandoned by Alcatel/Thales. GoA 4 stuff is only viable along small, low ridership stretches of track. If you knock the level of automation down a peg or two it's a lot easier to scale up to busier/larger systems.

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