Don’t talk and drive.
The conductor of a Spanish train that was going twice the speed limit when it crashed, killing 79 people, was on the phone.
A Spanish court says the train’s black-box data recorder shows the conductor talking with a rail company official and consulting a paper document when the train went off the rails.
The train had been going as fast as 119 miles per hour, but the conductor applied the brakes “seconds before the crash,” bringing the speed down to 95, still almost twice the speed limit. The conductor has been provisionally charged with negligent homicide. Read more.
{Andy Heller-Matzav.com Newscenter}
He was driving close to twice the speed limit. He regularly boasted about his fast driving and made jokes about police and fines. And the only thing the article focuses upon, is the phone? He very obviously was attentive, to the point he braked properly (but of course a train is not a car and it needs kilometers to slow down). The lesson we should learn is not “don’t talk and drive” (although that, too, must be avoided) but rather “have at heart your life and your passengers’ when you get behind the wheel”.
We don’t know if the speed shown on the speedometer in his posted picture was above the speed limit. He was operating a high speed train and 125 is not excessive on most parts of the line.