Public Transit Disasters – What’s Going On?

By James Donahue

They have stacked up to a point where it is difficult for the average American reader (or television watcher) to remember what happened just a day or two ago? I am looking at the national news at this moment (July 29) and reading a story about a head-on collision of two trains in Switzerland Monday that left at least 35 people hurt, five of them seriously.

Just days earlier we watched the horrific images of a high-speed train crash in Spain that left 79 passengers dead.

And in Italy on Sunday a tour bus plunged into a ravine and killed at least 38 passengers.

There has been a shockingly long list of train and bus disasters that have been killing people in nearly every country of the world in recent weeks.

There were 19 people killed and 20 injured when a train collided with a truck in South Africa.

Another collision of a passenger train with a parked freight in India killed another 19 passengers and left 35 others injured.

Three people died when a passenger train derailed in Ontario, Canada in February.

The derailment of another train in India left five more people dead

A bus crash at Indianapolis, Indiana, killed three young people and hospitalized 26 others last week. The bus was bringing the youth home from a church camp in Michigan when it slammed into a concrete barrier at a high rate of speed.

Eighteen people died in a bus crash in Moscow. Another 25 were injured.

Another 16 passengers died and many others were hurt when a bus collided with another vehicle and then plunged over a cliff in Peru.

Nine passengers died in a bus crash in Spain. Five others were seriously hurt.

At least 16 people were killed and another 33 were injured when a passenger bus dropped into a deep river gorge in Montenegro.

A bus accident in India left 30 people dead. The bus skidded off the road and plunged into a river.

An estimated 40 people were killed when the bus they were riding in collided with a fuel tanker in Southern Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Five teenagers died in a bus crash in Belgium.

A bus that flipped over the rails of an overpass killed seven and left 11 other passengers injured in Rio de Janeiro.

At least 30 children were hurt when the bus they were traveling in crashed in Germany.

Seven people died when a bus crashed in Japan.

Eleven were killed in a bus crash in Portugual.

Six died in a bus accident on icy roads in the French Alps.

A tourist bus wreck in Oregon killed nine and left 20 more hurt.

Eleven kindergarten children in China died when their bus left the road and plunged into a pond.

In Columbia a bus accident left 26 dead.

About 50 people, mostly children, died in a bus wreck in Egypt.

In China a collision between a double-decker coach and a methanol tanker caused a fire that left 36 dead.

This terrible list goes on and on. It seems that buses and trains are colliding, flying off the roadways, plunging over ravines, and killing riders by the droves. It is a troublesome trend that we do not remember seeing during the years we have been scanning world news events via the Internet.

Naturally the authorities have been busy attempting to determine the causes of each and every one of these disasters, but we doubt if they are working and thinking collectively. We have the distinct feeling here that there is a common issue at play.

Are the operators of these vehicles overworked and just not thinking when they get involved in these deadly crashes? Are they "texting" friends and not keeping their eyes on the road? Or are the people in these "accidents," including the drivers, fulfilling a subconscius death wish as we plunge into what clearly appears to be the end of times for humanity on earth?