... Guess some people are above the law...
Video shows Texas police officer texting and driving

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Passenger train door open in traffic

At around 07:20 hrs on 22 August 2019, a passenger on a train travelling from London Liverpool Street to Southend Victoria reported to the driver that a door was open on the non-platform side at Hockley station. The door had been open in traffic for about 23 minutes, while the train travelled 16 miles (26 km) at speeds of up to around 80 mph (128 km/h).

Yet again, the reason why we need safety-trained staff able to move and act around the passenger areas, while the driver is busy at the front end.

...and drivers who pay attention to the in-cab displays and not ignore warning messages/bleeps.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

...and drivers who are not driven by their paymasters and the so-called "Passengers' Charter" to depart and arrive on time, under threat of financial penalty, whether they are issued with a badly maintained train or not.

Keyboard warriors - be careful where you spill your coffee.

Spilled coffee forces plane to divert over Atlantic

The AAIB says the main pilot was monitoring the co-pilot over the Atlantic Ocean when coffee was served.

The drinks were given in cups without lids, which the AAIB says was normal for the company operating the flight.

The main pilot put the coffee on his tray table - but the cup was later knocked over.

Most of the liquid fell onto the commander's lap and a small amount spilled on the main ACP1.

The ACP1 and later the co-pilot's ACP2 soon became hot enough to start melting one of its buttons.

Ah, Fate is the hunter. :-)

Safety, part 2. There I was, driving through town on my way to a day out in the countryside, when this happened:



'Town', in this case, is a length of serious roadworks to alleviate some horrible, long-standing, bottlenecks. I was hit as I negotiated a roundabout (traffic circle) - so no traffic coming towards me, but a road-works digger shifting rubble from the middle of the circle.

Fortunately, I've learned how to get my complaints noticed. Just had the senior liaison officer between the local council (paymaster) and civil contractor out to inspect the damage for himself - within about 4 hours of the incident. He'd already discussed my joint email to the council and contractor with his opposite number: cc local politician helps.

But if that projectile had landed a foot higher up, and sprayed broken glass into my eyes, it would have been a different story.

Well it's bigger than mine which was caused by a pebble, I have cracks radiating across the lower part of the windshield, asap it'll cost Me $233 to replace the windshield.

And the crack goes almost all the way to the right. If it rains or something the cracks get longer and yeah the car is pretty dirty, sometime in 2020 this will get replaced, maybe July.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Guess this is the best place for it...
California police officer must call off chase after Tesla patrol car's battery runs low

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There is a Safety Recommendation Report from the NTSB relating to the Lion Air & Ethiopian Airlines 373 Max 8 crashes.
Interestingly, it's only about the Crew response to the MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System) behaviour, and Boeing's assumptions of how a crew would respond to multiple alarms & MCAS issues.

The NTSB notes in the report that it is concerned that the accident pilots’ responses to unintended MCAS operation were not consistent with the underlying assumptions about pilot recognition and response that were used for flight control system functional hazard assessments as part of the Boeing 737 MAX design.

The NTSB’s report further notes that FAA guidance allows such assumptions to be made in certification analyses without providing clear direction about the consideration of multiple, flight-deck alerts and indications in evaluating pilot recognition and response. The NTSB’s report states that more robust tools and methods need to be used for validating assumptions about pilot response to airplane failures in safety assessments developed as part of the U.S. design certification process.

I've yet to see anything about the investigation as to what went wrong with the aircraft (MCAS activation due to erroneous data input) and why it occurred, and what needs to be done to stop it from occurring again.
Yes, it would be nice if systems acted in a way that people could understand. And yes it would be nice if they knew how to respond to a problem from such systems. But wouldn't it be even nicer if such systems didn't have issues that people will have to deal with at some point?

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Grant
Darwin NT

Yes, it would be nice if systems acted in a way that people could understand. And yes it would be nice if they knew how to respond to a problem from such systems. But wouldn't it be even nicer if such systems didn't have issues that people will have to deal with at some point?

The more complexity you build into systems to check and cross check the more different unexpected ways they can fail.

Are standards slipping?

Probably and the reasons why can be found in Gay's find posted in https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=84710&postid=2014269#2014269

Yes, it would be nice if systems acted in a way that people could understand. And yes it would be nice if they knew how to respond to a problem from such systems. But wouldn't it be even nicer if such systems didn't have issues that people will have to deal with at some point?

The more complexity you build into systems to check and cross check the more different unexpected ways they can fail.

That's true but because 'Plane flies across Atlantic without incident' doesn't make for a headline, the one or few times a system fails gets massively overblown compared to the thousands of times it doesn't.
Humans it seems are far more tolerant of human error than that of machines, even if machines are demonstrably safer at some tasks.
Automated vehicles could cut Britain's ~2,000 annual road deaths by 99% and the papers would report it as 'Self-driving cars murder 20 people per year!'

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Life on earth is the global equivalent of not storing things in the fridge.

The international team of experts convened by the FAA to review their Boeing 737 MAX Flight Control System certification process in the wake of two fatal accidents, has released its findings and recommendations.

The Joint Authorities Technical Review (JATR) consisted of technical representatives from the FAA, NASA, and civil aviation authorities from Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Europe, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates.

Source.

Overview. The FAA' s aircraft certification process has played a major role in producing airliners with an exemplary safety record consisting of a five-year worldwide average of only one fatal airliner crash for every 2 ½ to 3 million flights, and a U.S. record of only one airline passenger fatality in more than 10 years. Nonetheless, as with any system that is designed and operated by humans, the certification process can never be perfect, and the two tragic crashes that resulted in the creation of the JATR reveal a critical need to review the process to determine whether improvement and modernization are warranted.

After extensive effort, the JATR members have made many recommendations regarding modernization and improvement of the certification proess. Some of the recommendations are very broad in their application and others are more specific.

Broad Recommendations. Some of the broader recommendations derive from the increasing complexity of aircraft systems, particularly automated systems and the interaction and the interrelationship between systems. As aircraft systems become more complex, ensuring that the certification process adequately addresses potential operational and safety ramifications for the entire aircraft that may be caused by the failure or inappropriate operation of any system on the aircraft becomes not only far more important, but also far more difficult.

Other broader recommendations raise the foundational issue of whether a process that has historically served the industry well for decades based largely upon compliance needs to be revisited to address not only compliance but also safety. As systems become more complex and may interact in unforeseeable ways, the likelihood increases that regulations and standards will not address every conceivable scenario. To the extent they do not address every scenario, compliance with every applicable regulation and standard does not necessarily ensure safety. Moreover, as systems become more complex, the certification process should ensure that aircraft incorporate fail-safedesign principles. These principles prioritize the elimination or mitigation of hazards through design, minimizing reliance on pilot action as primary means of risk mitigation.

Specific Recommendations. The specific recommendations include reviewing whether the ODA process can be made less cumbersome and bureaucratic to avoid stifling needed communications. The recommendations do not address the desirability of the ODA concept in general, but they do recommend examining how to help ensure adequate communications in future certification processes about important characteristics of what is being certificated.

Query, for example, whether inadequate communications were partly responsible for the failure to address potential unintended consequences from the evolution of MCAS from a relatively benign system to a much more aggressive system; and query whether inadequate communications played a role in the failure to address potential unintended consequences that can result from designing software for one scenario - in this case, high-speed windup turns - and then modifying the software for a different scenario - in this case reducing the pitch-up tendency at higher angles of attack at low speeds.

Other specific recommendations relate to revisiting the FAA's standards regarding the time needed by pilots to identify and respond to problems that arise. Although existing standards have served the industry well for decades, the JATR members recommend an examination of whether those standards are as appropriate for the complex integrated systems in today's airplanes. For example, when the failure or inappropriate operation of a system results in cascading failures and multiple alarms, query how adequately the certification process considers the impact of multiple alarms, along with possible startle effect, on the ability of pilots to respond appropriately. Inherent in this issue is the adequacy of training to help pilots be able to respond effectively to failures that they may never have encountered before, not even in training.

Post-Certification. The initial scope of the JATR process was limited to the certification process itself, but the charter enabled the co-chairs, in their discretion, to expand the scope if warranted. Hence, some of the recommendations pertain to post-certification activities because of their potential to help improve the safety of future certification processes.

The report.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Having driven a multitude of Ford/Mercedes/Renault vans, their height varies from 5ft 8in to 9ft 1in.
Oops

Consequences of drinking and driving:
He drove off the road and abandoned his car – a bit too close to the railroad tracks

... The man believed to be the driver of the car had been arrested on a public intoxication charge about an hour before the collision....

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What is it with drivers & bridges? Twice in less than a week.
Stonea bridge hit yet again
Think the local carrot crunching yokels around this side of the country should leave off with the carrots & crunch wu's instead of those & bridges. :-)

Why the authorities haven't previously closed the road under a dangerously low 7 foot high bridge and is now just debating the closure, is the question.

Why? There's nothing intrinsically wrong with a low bridge, if the vast majority of users are able to use it without issue.
No, the question is "Why are people driving, that shouldn't be?"

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Grant
Darwin NT