Metro Kills?
This morning on the red line at Metro Center, a woman was trying to board my car. This was a difficult task, since the doors had closed on her. The entire right side of her body was outside the train, and had we started down the track, she would have split into even halves. Now, even though I’m from Texas and support prairie justice, I don’t like it when people get killed. So I tried to pull the doors apart until the woman got free. After she was in the car, I noticed who was standing next to me: a Metro employee. And I remembered that he had boarded just before the woman got caught. Through her ordeal, he stood almost as close to her as I did. Even though he was bigger than I, he didn’t help me hold those doors.
We read in December that Metro’s trains killed three workers within 14 months. We read in February that Metro’s buses killed five people within nine months. We have had doors closed on us or helped others out when the doors closed on them. And perhaps we wrote these things off as risks of urban living. But when Metro employees stand aside during obvious danger, shouldn’t we start to wonder what’s going on with our transportation agency?
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1:30 pm
“Metro Doesn’t Open Doors”
1:48 pm
Dammit! THAT’s the headline I was thinking of but couldn’t get off the tip of my tongue.
1:59 pm
You need to spend more time on stalled Orange Line cars during rush hour. By the time I get to Metro Center I’m fully loaded with irony and snark.
2:17 pm
While I agree with the basic point of your posting, that the employee was a slacker, I think that it’s important in any discussion about doors closing on people, to note that these people are STUPID. There is ample warning that the doors are closing, it should be obvious whether you can get yourself through one, yet people routinely risk their lives by shoving themselves into a closing, automatic door, rather than wait for the next train (which, during rush hour, is probably 4 minutes away at most).
Given how often Metro trains break down, why would anyone assume that the door’s safety features (which really are much less useful than, say, a typical elevator) are going to work at any given time? Given that most people in this city wouldn’t lift a finger to save their own grandmother from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, why would anyone assume that people would help them out after stupidly putting themselves in the path of a closing Metro door?
2:20 pm
How about when people see the door closing, they simply allow them to close, rather than trying to jam their bodies into a probably already overcrowded car? I am sick of people like this totally ignoring the operators instructions and causing trains to be taken out of service causing even worse crowding on the next train.
2:56 pm
I think people jump into overcrowded cars and risk their limbs in the doorways for the same reason that they jaywalk and litter. That is, people are not responsible or efficient. We have rules to keep us in line, but we begin to listen to the urgency of our schedules or the press of the crowd, and we don’t stay in line. Whether the rest of us like it, some will always stick their necks into the departing train. We could let those inconsiderate neck-stickers mash into pulp on the walls, but something tells us that is not right. So we help. I believe that if I hadn’t helped, someone else would have. But I was angry that this employee of the public (i.e. Metro) did not see public safety as his immediate duty.
4:31 pm
I’ll tell you what’s going on with our transportation agency, Sir. Its employees cannot care less, the trains can be excruciatingly slow and extreme patience required.
In addition, one’s existence can be indefinitely put on hold by a pitiless metrobus driver.
5:15 pm
>>But I was angry that this employee of the public (i.e. Metro) did not see public safety as his immediate duty.
if the police don’t do it, why should the metro employees?
5:58 pm
Even if I felt no obligation to help a fellow human, as an employee of Metro it might strike me: I can either A) help this silly woman get into the train, or b) be later deployed onto the tracks by my employer to pick up her dismembered body parts.
I would choose A, but perhaps this Metro employee already has a collection of lady parts in his fridge at home and was hoping to add to it. Collectors can be such an obsessive lot!
9:35 am
I wrote about this a few weeks ago on my blog when I witnessed a man run and get stuck in the doors, while the rest of us on the train could only stare. It is a bizarre situation. No train is ever that important to catch!
10:33 am
“I think people jump into overcrowded cars and risk their limbs in the doorways for the same reason that they jaywalk and litter.”
Not exactly the same – littering doesn’t pose any personal risk, and most people don’t jaywalk into a piece of roadway that is about to be occupied by a moving vehicle. The door thing, though, really defies the natural survival instinct that most people have in other situations. I guess some people just don’t see it as a real danger, or something. Or, maybe these people are just really stupid, and this is a simply natural selection at work.
11:01 am
Just to be contrary… I do jump onto trains when the chime repeats over and over. If I knew that one chime was quickly followed by definitive door closeage, then I wouldn’t attempt it. But, if the driver is all indecisive and decides to wait for some stragglers, I’m going to go for it. But never into an already crowded train – I need some place to land.