Ten90 Solutions LLC

Received the following correspondence from a colleague,  Bill Keppen:

Hello David,

I have spent the last two days and tossing and turning nights trying to figure out a way to respond to FRA's most recent (criminal) miss-deeds. I whole wholeheartedly agree with your assessment and closing statement. My question is, how does one get this message out to the public to generate enough outrage that FRA will have to reverse course. As we know, FMCSA already has medical fitness-for-duty standards and protocols for CMV operators. They have a standard medical exam form. They have certified medical examiners. They have standard questions and procedures for sleep tests, compliance monitoring and suspension of medical certification. They have even stated in withdrawing their portion of the ANPRM that they are going to update their medical protocols to include the new MRB recommendations on screening and treatment of CMV operators who may be OSA affected. FRA, well, you have said it all already. NTSB has not yet issued final reports on NJT/Hoboken, LIRR/Atlantic, or BNSF/Panhandle. I will not be surprised if all of these are so to be added to the long list of OSA caused collisions/derailments. The body count will continue to grow while the folks at FRA fiddle.

In answer to the question of "how do we get the message out?," I'll point out that if I had the answer to that, I too wouldn't have been tossing and turning in bed, and rousing myself at 1 AM to write something that I distributed at 3 AM.  

Nah... I probably still would do that, but you know what I mean. 

We can, of course, follow the usual paths, contacting the usual suspects... our senators, our congressional representatives, and that might or might not prove productive over time.      

We can comment directly to FRA, which is not a bad idea, but expecting an agency which has committed itself to eschewing any action in this area to now reverse itself and initiate action is... how should be put it, and tastefully... a bit unrealistic? a bit impractical,  a bit... wistful, almost poignant?   

I'm not  impractical, nor am I wistful. I think the most important thing that we, collectively, railroad professionals committed to operating safety and grasping, as we do and some don't, that railroads are both public utilities and businesses, is...to not shut-up.

I think that is our strongest card to play here: we don't shut up. I happen to be very good at that, not shutting-up.  In fact I made (and almost unmade, several times) a career of not shutting up.

I think that every time these ensembles of Ayn Rand primitivists roll out their nonsense about "reducing the regulatory burden," "eliminating red tape," "freeing the inner entrepreneur inside all of us," we call it out for what it is: ideological obfuscation, misdirection, for covering up the increased risk to public safety.

We point out that the ideological baloney isn't going to eliminate the price to be paid, or the theoretical cost of the regulation-- it's simply going to make others pay for the much greater cost of not having the regulations in place.

Those others, of course, are the public, the community, the despised and ridiculed "common good" and general welfare.

To be sure, shutting up isn't the worst thing we could do (or not do?).  It's the second worst thing we could do.  The worst thing we could is to shut-up, and then after another accident occurs break our silence to say,"I told you so." 

David Schanoes, August 7 2017