Mr March Posted April 26, 2005 Posted April 26, 2005 Just read an article when I got into work today about a serious train accident in Amagasaki, outside of Osaka. The article is reporting over 400 people injured and 70+ killed. One thing the article stressed was the track record of safety that Japan has enjoyed for almost 40 years. It also stressed a need for years to place safety above punctuality. Critics are claiming punctuality is the current top priority for Japanese train operators. I hope no one here was involved in the terrible accident and all your relatives/friends in the area are safe. Can anyone who lives in Japan verifiy some of the facts in this article? As a foreigner, I always like to monitor how news services in my country accurately report on such foreign affairs and the amount of truth vs. sensationalism is present in my regular readings. Is the transportation system in Japan really as efficient and safe as they say? Is this really a bad accident for Japan public transportation? Quote
Akilae Posted April 26, 2005 Posted April 26, 2005 (edited) Well, my news sources (slashdot, office gossip, etc..) say that it wasn't really the railroad company's fault, but a glitch in Trend-Micro's virus definition files that caused the whole system to lock up. Dunno how true that is though... Edited April 26, 2005 by Akilae Quote
F-ZeroOne Posted April 26, 2005 Posted April 26, 2005 I don't live in Japan, but I work for a railway company in the UK, a country whose rail network is often compared in a demeaning sense to other countries in the press (sometimes, fairly, sometimes not) - it does tend to make you slightly more interested in other countries networks, if only out of a sense of self-defence... On top of this, I'm an anime fan and am interested in Japan generally, so I keep a closer eye on the news from there. Accidents on the famous shinkansen are practically unknown; only one has ever been derailed and that was the result of an earthquake, and resulted in only minor injuries. There have been one or two eyebrow raising incidents, but in general the shinkansen are probably as safe as it is possible to be considering the speeds at which they operate. For the more "ordinary" trains, serious accidents are rare, but not totally unknown. I can only recall one fatal incident in the past five years or so, when the part of the side of a Tokyo city service was somehow ripped off. There have also been one or two fatal incidents involving people working on or near the railway. The biggest hazard in Japan, at least going by keeping an eye on the news over the past few years, would appear to be road or people crossings ("level" crossings in the UK), and people or objects being struck by trains at them. Remember all those anime scenes at crossing gates? A little while ago, there was a serious and fatal incident in the UK involving a possibly sucidal car driver who appeared to have deliberately stopped his car on a level crossing. Shortly afterwards, I found a graph that listed types of this incident in various countries, and Japan had a much higher incident rate than just about any other country listed on that graph; anyone who has visited a Japanese city probably won't be surprised to hear that. A newspaper report I saw this morning indicates that Japanese railway staff might be under rather high pressure to deliver services on time, with targets set that UK train operating companies would probably say are virtually impossible to meet without some serious investment (as Japan has done). I rather suspect that, as in most cases, this incident will be the result of a number of errors. Some more news information on the Osaka crash can be found here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4480965.stm The very worst rail related incident in Japan, though, would have to be the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. Also, it should be pointed out, that rail travel is in general safer than road travel... Quote
hellohikaru Posted April 27, 2005 Posted April 27, 2005 There is also the possibility that someone placed stones on the rails to cause the accident. http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/20050427wo21.htm Quote
Mr March Posted April 27, 2005 Author Posted April 27, 2005 Thanks for the info F-ZeroOne. Always good to check up on this stuff. I must admit, it is somewhat strange the amount of attention I give to Japan. I suppose as a fan of their art media to a degree, I relate/notice more of what occurs in Japan as opposed to other countries. But I guess that's just me. I also watch what happens in Australia, the US, and Europe a great deal more than any other countries. Quote
F-ZeroOne Posted April 27, 2005 Posted April 27, 2005 (edited) You're welcome, although I'll stress again I'm not an expert, just interested. I know what you mean about keeping up with news from Japan - I probably know nearly as much about Japanese baseball as I do about English football [1]...! Thats thanks to the excellent books on the subject by Robert Whiting (You Gotta Have Wa! and The Meaning of Ichiro); it says something about how good those books are because I actually have very little interest in baseball - and football - as sports...! Its fun to occassionally see names I recognise crop up on Japanese news... [1] Also known as soccer. The principle difference is that in soccer, actual foot-to-ball contact is required for the majority of the game... Edited April 27, 2005 by F-ZeroOne Quote
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