Unfair comparison: media overlooks road’s extra dangers
Safety, in relation to rail transport, is a word that all readers of RAIL will be familiar with. On the other hand, a comparison of safety between road and rail is not mentioned very often - especially in media reporting of accidents on road and rail.
On the roads, you have to have three or more people killed in an accident to get national media coverage - an accident with one or two deaths is largely confined to local news.
A few weeks ago, there was a very bad accident on the M1 near Milton Keynes. Eight people were killed, and it was reported on national news. On the same day, a train hit the buffers at King’s Cross station. No one was injured. This was also reported on national news, yet something that was out of all proportion to the M1 accident. How long ago was it since a passenger was killed on the railway?
Very rarely does one hear about the railway being the safest form of inland transport. It is a strictly controlled and regulated system with signalling that would make road traffic lights seem irrelevant in comparison. When travelling by road, you enter an unregulated system where you take your life into your own hands and hope for the best.
Yet within the railway system there seems to be an army of people searching for any details that may lead to some kind of absolute safety.
If you are really worried about your journey by rail, then there is only one answer: you must remain indoors, because in order to get to the railway station you would have to use or cross one or more main roads, which are a thousand times more dangerous than any rail journey.