A Taiwan express train carrying hundreds of people derailed in a tunnel near eastern Hualian county on Friday, killing and injuring at least 200. This is the island’s worst railroad disaster in more than 70 years. Many of the victims’ family members stayed with the dead and the badly wounded survivors, crying, “How could this have happened?”

Some 900 days ago, a Puyuma Express train came off the rails in eastern Yilan country, killing 18. Some 30 days ago, two railway maintenance workers of Taiwan Railway were hit by a train. And 10 days ago, six died when a tour bus crashed into a mountain wall in eastern Dongao. All of the victims’ families also cried and wondered why. But so what?

There is a consensus in our society that human lives matter. The Chinese see life as a big issue (life is most precious) , but it is based on the assumption that our life is facing a direct and imminent threat. If no specific causes or victims are found, hazards in public places will be obscured, undermining public’s awareness of the risks to public safety. In transportation alone, as many as 3,000 are killed and over 400,000 are injured annually. Friday’s tragedy is just the tip of an iceberg, and it deserves a thorough review and reflection.

Given railway’s large capacity and high speed, it is a must to ensure clearance beside a railway track. According to the safety requirement, any structure alteration or public construction within 15 meters beside the railway line must be notified and authorized by the regulators. Hualian’s derailment showed a construction project has been under way near the north end of Daqingshui Tunnel. But no protection was made to ensure clearance between the site and the track, a clear sign that both the contractor and Taiwan Railway Administration were not placing enough importance on safety to prevent potential accidents.

The construction vehicle (crane truck) was believed to have caused the crash. It improperly parked on the slope about 20 meters above the track. It slipped down onto the track and hit the Taroko express train, causing a devastating tragedy. Transportation Safety Board in charge of the investigation is focusing on whether the truck’s emergency brake was properly engaged or the brake was malfunctioning. But the problem is why the crane truck driver was so negligent?

Occupational Safety and Health Equipment Act requires the employers make sure the driver or the person concerned do not park vehicles or machines on slopes to prevent them from rolling down, unless other facilities or measures have been adopted. With regard to the latest disaster, the contractor and its staff obviously did not comply with this regulation.

Everyone should follow safety rules and procedures to ensure each part of the whole system is safe, or at least to minimize the danger. Unfortunately, lack of risk management and safety awareness has long been a problem for TRA.

Take the Puyuma incident in 2018 as an example. The driver was reporting a mechanical problem while driving, and the distraction caused the driver to miss the speed limit sign before deadly derailment. Why wouldn’t he have stopped the train until the problem had been fixed? The four investigation reports all blamed the mistake of turning off the automatic train protection system (ATP) as the main cause for the accident. But they failed to ask the driver why he had been pressed to hurry and make up for lost time to run the service on schedule. In fact, it shows there is a culture in TRA where it would rather take the risk of speeding up a train than come to a stop for the sake of safety. Such a decision is surely a response to years of attack and blame by the society for train delays. And if the train had stopped, rescheduling staff would have led to peer pressure.

In addition to rail accidents, the increasing road traffic deaths and injuries in the past three years also show a need to raise public’s awareness towards safety. The first thing the authorities should do is ask the enforcement officers to follow the internationally agreed standard. In other words, we should use a definition of death within 30 days after a crash occurred, instead of the 24-hour definition to gloss over the reality. The population should face the problem of worsening road safety.

A more worrisome problem is that our society is too obsessed with “construction” projects made by politicians during campaigns. Such “checks” lack comprehensive planning, pay no attention to additional costs, result in losses of construction companies and lower morality. TRA’s integration plan is increasing the demand for maintenance manpower in the west while undermining the maintenance in the remote east, which is believed to be responsible for the recent incidents. Can such disastrous tragedies serve as a wake-up call and shift the political climate away from promising voters more constructions?

In response to the victims’ families’ cry, we have to learn a lesson from this bitter experience, admit this is the tip of an iceberg and take a deep look at the entrenched negligence towards safety. The public has to change the mindset, go beyond selfishness and one’s own convenience, and develop a culture that respects life. Let their bitter cries be written into law. Ministries work together to build a multiple safeguard.

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