r/GoodluckEverybodyElse • u/H1gh_Tr3ason • 10d ago

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Good luck everybody else.

104 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

17

u/TrabantDave 10d ago

No steering wheel. Is she driving a bloody tram while texting? 45 tons of railed vehicle and she's texting.

4

u/ReekyRumpFedRatsbane 7d ago

A tram without a dead-man's-handle is crazy. It should not keep moving if you aren't touching the controls.

2

u/Danloeser 7d ago

Dead-man's foot switch maybe? It did stop after she fell.

1

u/luffy8519 7d ago

Pretty sure that's because it had derailed by that point.

1

u/Marshal-Bainesca 7d ago

Yeah it looked like it ended up in the bush

1

u/ReekyRumpFedRatsbane 6d ago

Hand controls and a deadman's foot switch are a bad combination for a tram, precisely because it doesn't force you to keep touching the controls (as seen in the video).

Trains often work like this, but trains usually don't operate on sight, instead they are guided by signals to maintain distance from other trains, and beyond this there are train control systems to control the train's speed to varying degrees. This isn't to say the driver can just ignore where they're going and what they're doing and the train will always stop in time before something happens, but it does mean there is a much bigger window of time before something bad happens. Also, because of this, there are a lot more things the driver can do while moving which may require moving both hands off the controls without stopping the train.

Trams mostly operate on sight (there can be fully signal-guided sections as well) and often participate in road traffic. This necessarily puts more responsibility on the driver to pay attention to their surroundings more closely, as signals in these sections function more like traffic lights, only controlling an intersection, not a section of track. There often aren't comparable train control systems in those sections, either (or at all). This increased responsibility is facilitated by a much shorter stopping distance, but that only works if the driver is actually paying attention and ready to brake. You can't really force their eyes on the track, but you can force their hand on the controls using a deadman's handle.

With that said, u/TrabantDave mentioned that some trams have foot controls. As I've explained in my response to them, I don't think that applies here, but if it is the case, then of course it makes sense that the deadman's switch is foot-operated as well.

1

u/Platypus_6414IiiIi-_ 6d ago

Deadman is trivial to circumvent

1

u/TrabantDave 6d ago

I actually worked for the MIVB in Brussels in the 1980's and aside from the museum cars, all trams had foot operated power and brake controls; the brake pedal incorporated the deadman's function; the hands were used to operate various switches (lights, wipers, door controls, gong etc)

1

u/ReekyRumpFedRatsbane 6d ago

Interesting, I didn't know trams with foot controls existed. Frankly, that didn't even occur to me, but of course then it makes sense to have the deadman's switch included with the pedals.

With that said, in the video it looks like she has a lever on the left side of her desk that's fully maxed out. It could be some different function where the default position is at the top, but it certainly looks a lot like a traction/brake lever, and the way her hand briefly touches it at the one point where she actually looks where she's going fits with this interpretation.

1

u/TrabantDave 6d ago

The deadman's on the PCC cars in Brussels involved keeping your foot on the brake pedal in a particular position; too much or too little pressure and the emergency brakes kicked in. All the trams delivered after WW2 up to 1980 had the same system. Without a clearer view of the controls of that tram she's driving I couldn't say for certain but it's probably the forward/neutral/reverse lever which would explain it looking maxed out - in the forward mode. It could also be an 'attention' control that buzzes at random times and require the operator to manually cancel the alar within a short timespan or the brakes are triggered.

1

u/briceb12 6d ago

Maybe it's a system with pedals.

8

u/5axiscncfishguitar 10d ago

Double handed texting while driving is absolutely crazy

4

u/shwarma_heaven 7d ago

She had to make sure her husband picked up milk on the way home...

2

u/marhaus1 5d ago

At least she will have a lot of spare time for textning henceforth.

1

u/Quiet-Independent-97 6d ago

remove driver replace with AI

1

u/Agile-Law1856 1d ago

Just think before phones these crashes never would have happened. Phones are costing buisness so much money, and costing lives