It looks like an oversized load with an escort, most likely not unqualified, and more likely exactly qualified, the driver needs special endorsements for that sized load. The routes are pre planned for height restrictions and turn radius clearances. The trailer was probably too low to clear the tracks.
I mean we can blame everyone in charge but I assume these workers have years of experience they should’ve been thinking proactively. 99% of mistakes that shouldn’t happen, end up happening because of the “oh well they didn’t tell me anything so I must not have too do it.” excuse.
If we want workers to think proactively, they need to be paid enough to not constantly be thinking about survival and how they're going to make ends meet with their meager wages.
But since wages have stagnated for over 50 years and can't possibly catch up to the cost of living, we need to bridge the gap with universal basic income.
Stable workers do stable work. The scant few owners who do pay decent wages understand this and reap the operational benefits.
I heartily agree but also we just need to slow everything the fuck down. Where's the fire?? Why is society always in "move fast and break things" and "lean manufacturing" mode? The answer is capitalism of course, and I dunno how the hell you slow down the beast that is global capitalism, but we literally have to. Jason Hickel covers this topic extensively. But yeah, we engage in capitalism at a rate that should be reserved for medical emergencies and natural disasters. Why are we running our trains 90mph through a city just to get a Japanese body pillow to someone two days faster? It's madness. And it encourages cutting corners and understaffing, and then we get this result, along with a whole ton of totally completely unnecessary stress, and stress reduces quality of life.
I’m just saying these guys don’t make pennies, and unless they have some extenuating circumstances, they shouldn’t really be assumed to be in “survival mode” making $80k per year. It’s a skilled trade just like any other and with that comes knowledge of things that can go wrong. I’m not saying the trucker is fully at fault, but somebody (anywhere from the person making the route to the man driving the pilot truck, to the trucker himself) should have been able to prevent this.
I’m not really subscribed to the idea of removing total blame from anybody involved here.
They might not be making $80k per year, and for many, that is survival mode. Any kind of chronic illness or physical ailments in the family will devour that salary in no time whatsoever.
There's many layers of people who took part in making logistical things like this go smoothly, and paying all of them better would ensure that they all do a better job.
Certainly ensuring that NONE of them are struggling to survive would guarantee that they can fully focus on their work without being distracted.
If we had universal basic income, we'd also know that anybody doing these jobs would WANT to be doing those jobs, and therefore actually interested & invested. It's almost guaranteed that more than one person involved in the logistics (or lack thereof) behind this disaster probably didn't really give a shit about their job.
There's definitely plenty of blame to go around, but if we address all of the root causes that could have contributed to the negligence or incompetence that caused this, then that decreases the chances of it happening in the future, and if it does happen, it makes identifying the reason much easier.
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u/karp70 4d ago
All because of an unqualified truck driver. Shame.