Car vs. Train and Public Policy

* The sad news report “3 Injured as Train Strikes Car in Placentia” (Dec. 29) could have easily been headlined “Car Strikes Train.”

All possible safety warnings, visual and acoustic, were employed. Yet the car driver gambled his two-ton auto against a 100-ton Amtrak train and lost.

He alone is responsible for all damages, injuries and the expense to clean up the wreckage, not Amtrak or Placentia. Our society has mastered the mentality of assuming no personal responsibility and blaming others for all misfortune resulting from bad judgment and choices.

Placentia’s plan to lower train tracks below the level of streets at a cost of $275 million to taxpayers is akin to all our beach cities draining the Pacific Ocean to avoid drowning tourists and ensure their safety.

Cities cannot “idiot-proof” their areas and guarantee 100% accident-free safety for individuals who make poor, dangerous choices.

They should not bear the costs or liability for these disasters, either. Stop, look and listen still works--even in California, when the surf is up.

BILL LAWSON

Costa Mesa

* On Dec. 28 there was another crash on a railroad grade crossing in Placentia, the fourth in two years.

This has led to a call for safer crossings. I would like to point out that grade crossings are not unsafe. It is the motorists who have no regard for their own safety or the safety of people who have put their trust in them to drive and fail to pay attention to the lights, signs and gates that are at fault, not the crossing.

A grade crossing is an intersection. Of all intersections, they are the safest as they are controlled by signs, lights or lights and gates. The safeguards are there for all and only a minority ignore them.

Trains have the right of way because they are unable to swerve to avoid objects and because of the size and mass of the trains and the distance they take to stop.

JOHN REGAN

Christchurch, New Zealand