by James Buchanan

A recent news article reports “At least nine people have died following a collision between two Metro trains in Washington DC last night. Officials say one of the trains smashed into the back of the other at the height of yesterday evening’s rush hour. The trailing train jack-knifed into the air and fell on top of the other one. More than 70 people were taken to hospital after the collision, including six who were in a critical condition.”

Washington D.C. is 55.6 percent Black. Back in 1970, D.C. was 70 percent Black, and many Americans remember D.C. being the murder capital of the US. You don’t suppose that maybe the train engineer involved was Black or some of the board members of the DC Metro system might be Black? Well, you’d be right if you said “You betcha.”

It turns out that half of the board of directors are Black AND the train engineer who rear-ended a stopped train was also Black.

Another news article reports “The Metro train that plowed into the back of a stopped train yesterday in Washington, D.C., was in automatic mode and investigators found the emergency brake button depressed, the National Transportation Safety Board has announced. But investigator Debbie Hersman said it’s not clear whether the emergency brake actually was engaged at the time of the crash. Nine people died in the accident during rush-hour Monday afternoon.”

Considering that the train was near full speed at 70 mph, the train should have been on a long straight stretch of track. The train engineer should have been able to see the stopped train ahead of her and been able to significantly slow down or stop the train using the emergency button. The fact that the train collision took place at full speed suggests that the engineer was not looking ahead as she should have been. She may looked up at the last second, hitting the button when it was far too late, or she may have fallen on the button as the trains collided.

The same article notes “Metro identified the driver as Jeanice McMillan, 42, of Springfield, Va. She was hired in March 2007 as a bus driver and began operating trains this spring. She was just an hour into her 4-to-11-p.m. shift Monday when the crash occurred. Investigators want her cellphone and texting records to determine whether she was distracted before the crash.”

Shouldn’t a train engineer spend a decent amount of time as a “co-pilot” before being given sole control of a passenger train? It sounds like everyone was expecting the automation to do all the work.

Yet another news article on this reports “At the time of the crash, the train was also operating in automatic mode, meaning it was controlled primarily by computer. In that mode, the operator’s main job is to open and close the doors and respond to emergencies.”

The Board of Directors should be keenly focused on any and all problems with the automated system. It seems likely there was a failure to address problems with the system by a lackadaisical Board of Directors and a failure by the engineer to keep an eye out for obstructions on the track so she could break the train in time to save the lives of her passengers.

The US is increasingly burdened by quota-hires in roles that they should not be filling and sometimes innocent Americans die as a result of Affirmative Action. This train wreck in D.C. appears to have a very large quota-hire role, and I’m sure the mainstream media and the cowardly conservative press will avoid all mention of the obvious and pretend that race had nothing to do with this latest disaster.