If Only We Could Outlaw Stupidity!

It’s happened again!

This past Friday, a two-car Boston subway train plowed into another that was stopped in an underground tunnel for a red light. The damn fool operator of the first train was using his cell phone to send a text message to his girlfriend at the time of the accident.

Boston Globe photo

Luckily, there were no serious injuries, although 49 people were sent to Boston hospitals. The most serious injury – justice well served! – was to the operator himself, who broke his wrist … hopefully it was the one he uses to send text messages.

Of course this incident evokes the horrific accident near Los Angeles last year in which 25 people were killed and many more injured. The engineer of that commuter train was texting at the time of the accident.

Existing rules of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority already forbid the use of cell phones by train or bus operators while on duty, but the MBTA now says operators won’t even be allowed to have cell phones in their possession.

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