The Spanish Train Derailment

The world news recently has been full of reports on the horrendous train wreck in Spain that, at latest count, killed 80 people. Preliminary information suggests that the cause was that the train driver was going too fast, entering a curve on the line at more than twice the speed limit for that stretch.

It has made me remember the accident with the ocean liner the Costa Concordia, about a year ago where again human error was at fault: the ship was deliberately sailing too close to an island and struck submerged rocks, causing a very long gash in the ship's hull—a bit like the famous 1912 incident in which the Titanic hit an iceberg.

Every day we put ourselves at the mercy of train drivers, ship's captains, airline pilots. Subway drivers, bus drivers, taxi drivers. And we trust these people to have proper care for our lives and to perform their jobs safely and responsibly.

I do not ride in a taxi for years at a time but the last time I did, I upbraided the driver for using his cell phone while he was driving. But unfortunately, in many cases—the train, the plane, even the bus—we probably are not aware of the conduct of the person who is at the controls. We routinely ride these conveyances without giving any thought to whether the person who is in charge is mindful of the lives in his or her hands.

If we stop to think about it, we'd like to believe that the person at the helm is sober, reasonable, sensible, responsible. And they are, in the majority of cases. But clearly, once in a while, they are not as we might wish. It's difficult to understand why the Spanish train driver or the captain of the Costa Concordia would improperly operate the machine he was controlling.

So we are left, as in so many cases, with a mystery of human behavior. Of course the person who begins to dwell on all the perils of life will lock himself in his house and never venture out. We would not consider that normal behavior. So 99.99 percent of us must go through life with trust and optimism, or in blissful ignorance, however you want to view it.

And life requires that. I had a conversation with my sister recently. She is 78 years old, and I was talking about our respective "conditions." I mentioned that I perhaps have been fortunate, not having had any of the "big" illnesses or conditions such as cancer, heart attack, or stroke. So, I concluded, I expect to live to a pretty old age. But then we got into how you never know what peril might strike. I adduced the case, a few years ago, where a person was walking down the street in Chicago, as ignorant and oblivious as can be, when a giant icicle happened to fall from the top of a tall building—and the poor and innocent pedestrian was killed by it.

So what is the moral? We are daily at the mercy of perils that are often unseen. Maybe we are daily shielded by our guardian angel, if you want to believe that. But we go sailing forth more blindly than the captain of any ship.

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