New York City Trains: Rare but Tragic Accidents
In New York City, the public transportation systems revolve around the trains and subways with millions riding them each year.
Most times, everything goes smoothly with people at their destinations safe and sound; however, sometimes the most unfortunate of events happens and there are both fatalities and injuries due to train accidents and derailments.
Although these sad events happen minimally, a NYC Train Accident Lawyer is always prepared to assist those involved to right any wrongs that may have caused the tragedy and to aid those who need it most.
Unfortunately, the most recent train accident occurred last Monday on the Metro-North train in the Bronx, leaving the death toll at 4 with more than 70 injured.
It is now widely agreed upon that the cause of the wreck was a result of unawareness, and it is speculated that the motorman was fighting drowsiness and possibly asleep when the train approached a sharp turn at about three times the safe speed. When reaching this point, the train was unable to remain grounded on the tracks and careened off.
While situations such as this are rare, New York City has experienced a few over the centuries.
A strikingly similar accident to the one that occurred on Monday happened in 1918 on the Malbone Street Line of Brooklyn. While loses of the latest crash are unacceptable, the loss from this wreck would certainly be unimaginable today.
It was reported that there were over 100 injuries and as many as 85 could have died in the rush hour accident. This derailment happened during a motorman strike, and forced to come up with a driver, the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company hired an individual untrained to operate the train and after approaching a turn with too much speed, the train derailed and collided with a concrete partition.
Another event like the one from this past Monday took place in The Park Avenue tunnel in NYC on January 9, 1902. As the other two times mentioned previously that happened in 2013 and 1918, this train accident was the result of a motorman error.
Despite there being signals warning the motorman, he was said to have not seen them, causing the train to smash into another train that was backed up and waiting, resulting in 15 deaths and numerous injuries.
In light of this most recent accident, MTA officials are looking to possibly install new safety measures along train routes in New York City in 30 different locations that will monitor and restrict the trains speed in order to reduce the chances of a derailment or wrecks.
While these types of train crashes are rare and most often happen because of driver errors, a qualified NYC Train Accident Lawyer is able to help for any legal situation in the chance that a tragedy such as this occurs again.