Assorted-Fruit OP t1_janxpw8 wrote on March 2, 2023 at 8:12 PM

#2,146,837

Data collected from the US DOT Federal Railroad Administration and Operation Lifesaver

https://railroads.dot.gov/accident-and-incident-reporting/train-accident-reports/train-accidents-cause

I used Excel to created the trend line graph and pie chart after cleaning up the data to be more clear and condensed. Items combined and finished in Adobe Illustrator. Some of the categories for the pie chart were combined/reworded to fit the infographic, but the main cause is still conveyed accurately in my opinion.

Quick note about the derailment pie chart: The majority of the reasons are categorized as “other”, but these were hundreds of reasons with little occurrences each. I included all of the major reasons as labeled amounts, and also cherry picked the vandalism statistic as that was something I thought some people were curious about. I do want to make note: vandalism is not the next lowest cause after ‘motorist deliberately caused” category, I simply wanted to make sure the percentage for that was actually shown.

BooStickTime t1_jao1aom wrote on March 2, 2023 at 8:35 PM

#2,147,009

The people who live in the area of the latest toxic spill will be so happy to hear that bit of news

jeffinRTP t1_jao5t1e wrote on March 2, 2023 at 9:03 PM

#2,147,191

Don't let the people believe it's capitalism or the queen of the company's fault for the wreck

LTaldoraine_789_ t1_jaob0p4 wrote on March 2, 2023 at 9:36 PM

#2,147,363

you should compare trends by company, before and after precision scheduled railroading

liaisontosuccess t1_jaobe3q wrote on March 2, 2023 at 9:39 PM

#2,147,375

anecdotally, based on YouTube vids,

I'd think the leading cause of derailments were big rigs trying to cross the tracks and getting stuck.

smauryholmes t1_jaohsev wrote on March 2, 2023 at 10:21 PM

#2,147,604

Replying to BooStickTime (#2,147,009)

Wait until you find out what the 4 million big rig trucks operating in America do to our air and water.

We need more trains, not less.

HortaNord t1_jaovbfh wrote on March 2, 2023 at 11:57 PM

#2,148,099

or government's lack of investment in safety measures

gudamor t1_jaowpmq wrote on March 3, 2023 at 12:08 AM

#2,148,149

I have faith neither in self-reported data from railroad companies nor in the captured regulatory agencies determinations of causes.

st4n13l t1_jaoyowa wrote on March 3, 2023 at 12:22 AM

#2,148,229

Replying to gudamor (#2,148,149)

Do you have contradictory data from a more reliable source?

Assorted-Fruit OP t1_jap188m wrote on March 3, 2023 at 12:41 AM

#2,148,331

Replying to gudamor (#2,148,149)

Literally half the data here is from a "watchdog" group that studies rail safety.

Assorted-Fruit OP t1_jap1evy wrote on March 3, 2023 at 12:43 AM

#2,148,339

Replying to HortaNord (#2,148,099)

The idea here is that they are reasonably safe, and when things do go wrong, it's not necessarily due to lack of safety measures. Most of these are human error, on a small scale.

Assorted-Fruit OP t1_jap1p7s wrote on March 3, 2023 at 12:45 AM

#2,148,350

Replying to BooStickTime (#2,147,009)

Not denying there was recently a large derailment that caused an environmental hazard, but it seems an idea against trains and rail safety is being pushed. The amount of people injured/impacted by trains still is tiny compared to truck freighting.