I am attending a legal marketing conference outside of Washington D.C. this week, and I am sitting with two Maryland Injury attorneys that specialize in mass transit collisions. They have tackled the Washington D.C. Metro system on numerous occasions, and we got to talking about how preventable this tragedy was. I grew up in Alexandria Virginia riding the Metro and was deeply disturbed by how unnecessary this Metro train crash was.
Although the the National Transportation Safety Board is only in the early phases of the investigation, several points are becoming clear:
1) The Metro Fail-Safe system is likely responsible for the crash. This is mind boggling given that triple redundancy is supposed to be built into these systems.
2) This is not the first time that the Metro Fail-Safe system has failed; this is just the most severe of the situations. These Maryland Metro crash lawyers have litigated similar failure cases in the past.
3) These prior Metro safety failures in Maryland have not been widely reported for obvious reasons.
There have been many nights that I have spoken with neighbors trying to explain the watchdog role that Atlanta personal injury lawyers play in uncovering carelessness, failures to maintain and sheer laziness. The civil justice system provides an watchful eye on malfeasance and is self-funded.
Taken as a whole, the Maryland Metro crash is a lesson in poor oversight. The Washington and Maryland Metro Train system is a common carrier of people and accordingly is held to a higher standard of care. While the NTSB will do their job, it is clear that even more details will come to light in the inevitable civil litigation to come. Professional attorneys with mass transit litigation experience will have access to records and experts above and beyond those produced by the government. The whole story behind this tragedy may not be known for months, but the transit authority should be hanging their heads knowing that it could have been prevented.