Comment by screye | Hacker News Reader

Comment by screye | Hacker News Reader

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> ballpark of 32x safer

That number (edit: rail deaths) feels too high. Other than major train collisions/derailments, is it even possible to die because of trains ?

> In 2022, more than two-thirds (69 %) of these fatalities in the EU were caused by 'accidents to persons by rolling stock in motion', typically involving persons who are unauthorised on the railway tracks and are hit by a running train. Together with level-crossing accidents, which caused 29 % of fatalities, these accidents were responsible for almost 98 % of all deaths occurring in railway accidents in the EU. [1]

So rail accidents where a train was at fault, constituted only 2% of deaths assigned to railways. Unlike train accidents, a car is always to blame (some car) in a car accident. Even if I double the risk of railways to 4% of their total number, railways are still 640x safer than cars.

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/images/2/...

[2] Note: All numbers exclude (alleged) suicides

> That number (edit: rail deaths) feels too high. Other than major train collisions/derailments, is it even possible to die because of trains ?

Pedestrians and others are struck by rail vehicles regularly. Additionally, where rails come into contact with other pathways, they are a hazard to pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists and sometimes even cars when railway is poorly designed or implemented.

Genuine question. How ?

A train is something you can see coming from a mile away. It doesn't blindside you. 'Deer in headlights' events occur, but it not like the person couldn't have foreseen it coming. It's like blaming parkour deaths on walls.

A pedestrian crossing a street can be 'struck' by a car, because a car can actually come out of nowhere. There is a reason that most car deaths in cities occur on a 'unchecked turn right on red'. It is an accident that occurs because of occlusion.

Trams have a risk profile that borrows some of the risks of cars. But, grade separated rail requires active fault form the pedestrian/cyclist to be in fatal accident.

Light rail is rarely grade separated. Heavy rail often has at grade crossings as well.

In most heavy rail, there's no chance of timely stopping if someone trips and falls on the tracks at an inopportune time and is unable to make their way away from the tracks in time. You can blame that on the pedestrian, but it's still a rail death in my book.

How? Easy. Drunk people or kids that Don’t pay attention or it is very crowded.

I looked it up and there are 140 people or so that get killed by train by year here in Germany. Could be a lot of suicids.

People do things like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/trains/comments/11doux4/people_clim...

Looking at rail fatalities without filtering by intent of the persons involved is equally as fruitless as looking at firearm fatalities without filtering to only homicides. Most fatalities are suicides. Suicides are likely preventable in various different ways but don’t tell us anything about passenger safety on rail.

If you eliminate likely suicides, rail travel is stupendously safer than driving.

You meant "That number feels too low"

Yep, I have phrased it badly. Meant that the rail death number feels too high.

clarified. thanks

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