No Cellphones, Please.
An idea whose time has come, the Boston Transit Authority is likely to ban its operators from even carrying cellphones on board. This, after a close call with an accident on Friday.
''When it comes to public safety and operating public transportation vehicles, a line has to be drawn,'' he said.
State Transportation Secretary James Aloisi Jr., chairman of the MBTA Board of Directors, said accidents like Friday's have become too common, citing a train accident last year in California in which 25 people were killed. A conductor involved in that crash was found to have sent and received 43 text messages and made four cell phone calls.
Aloisi said he doesn't know of any policy nationwide as tough as what the MBTA is planning.[1]
It's too bad that this looks to be the first of ban of its kind in the U.S. This quote from general manager Daniel Grabauskas sums up the need:
''I want to remove any temptation by one or two people stupid enough to
think a moment of convenience is worth the lives of the people they're
transporting,'' he said. ''I'm not going to wait for someone to die to
institute a policy whose time I think has come.'' [1]
Last year, in a Japan Times feature talking about the gestures the JR train operators make when a train approaches and leaves a station, there was this interesting tidbit:
Before I made tracks, I asked Satoh about cell phones. Just that
morning, news had come out that the driver in the Sept. 12 Los Angeles
train accident that killed 26 people had been sending text messages
just before the crash. Much to my relief, Satoh said that JR East has a
strict rule that employees may not even carry personal cell phones, let
alone use them, when working on trains. A driver or conductor found to
have used a personal cell phone on the job, he assured me, would be
fired. [2]
The Boston transit authority is doing the right thing, including firing the offending operator. If there's one thing the Japanese know, it's how to run an efficient train system. Cities would be wise to follow Japan Railway's and, presumably, now Boston's example.
[1]: After Boston Crash, Cellphone Ban May Loom, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/05/09/us/AP-US-Trolley-Crash.html?_r=1&hp
[2]: Japan Gestures, http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ek20081021wh.html
