Technology update needed !

When it comes to travel safety, trams and trains usually offer the best option.   It shocks many people to learn that one of the high speed " Bullet trains " in Europe crashed and killed seventy-eight passengers, and left scores of others with massive injuries.

What is even more shocking is the contention that this express Madrid to Santiago De Compostela train took a bend at a speed of a hundred and ninety kilometres per hour - when the limit on that portion of track was a mere eighty !

How is this possible - in an age when the designers of next generation cars are developing automatic braking systems coupled with radar vision to stop the vehicle when a collision seems imminent ?

High speed trains are a technology marvel - and yet their speed is in the hands of a human driver.   Worse still, this particular driver seems to have had an urge to speed because he posted a picture on social media showing his trains speedometer registering two hundred kilometres an hour - and joked how this would shock the highway patrol cops policing highway speeds.

The technology exists to regulate the speed of trains to the safety limit designated for each stage of the journey.  It should be impossible for the driver to exceed those limits, but possible for a speed reduction if weather or external factors pose an unexpected risk.   The task of the driver should be that of an observer, trained to add the human factor to an otherwise automated process.

This train crash in Spain adds a new dimension to train design.  It is a fact of life that some humans are addicted to risky behaviour and when we fly we know that most of the journey will be handled by the " auto pilot ".    What we are seeing now on high speed trains is the entire journey requiring the " hands on " skill of the train pilot.  The " auto pilot " has not yet been added to the rail system.

Accidents are the moving force to create safety.   This Spanish train crash should move the boffins to improve technology to ensure that never again can human error in exceeding speed cause a repetition !