After the Metrolink train crash that killed 25 people, officials are reviewing and evaluating current railway safety laws. One regulation Michael Peevey, President of the California Public Utilities Commission, intends to bring into light is to the prohibition of train staff using their mobile phones when on dusty.
But this ban is already there and yet regularly ignored. Currently there is no federal law that bans train drivers from using their cell phones while on the job. Peevey says that “What we’re doing is just a modest first step in a much larger effort to improve railroad safety.”
These efforts have stemmed from the claim that the Metrolink engineer was using his cell phone the day of the crash. Investigators have confirmed that he was receiving and sending out text messages from his phone that day, but it has not been confirmed that these correspondences happened right before the crash.
Investigators are looking into the engineer’s cell phone records. It is too early to confirm that this distraction is what caused the engineer to miss the red signal warning and not apply the train brakes. Investigators are also looking into malfunction of equipment or the incapacitation of the engineers has a possible cause of the accident.
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