Episode 241: TANA, ATU Edition

April 11, 2024

Central Thesis

"Accidents" are not unavoidable acts of carelessness, but rather predictable outcomes of systemic hazards that are often intentionally ignored for profit, with blame wrongly placed on individuals rather than on flawed systems.

Key Arguments

• Reframing Accidents: Jim advocates adopting Jesse Singer's perspective that so-called accidents should be understood as a "unique confluence of humans meeting humans. Hazards." The existing framing serves to distract from the easily-corrected hazards that cause the harm.
• The Swiss Cheese Model: Using James Reason's Swiss cheese model, Jim argues that accidents are rarely the result of a single point of failure, but rather the alignment of multiple systemic weaknesses. Each weakness, like a slice of cheese with a hole, increases the probability of an incident when aligned with other weaknesses.
• Wheelchair Ramp Design: He critiques the design of low-floor bus ramps, arguing that the lack of a physical barrier makes them a trip hazard, and that focusing solely on driver announcements and legal liability ignores the preventable design flaw. COVID sneeze guards provide a viable physical barrier, yet aren't thought of in this way.
• A-Pillar Blind Spots: Jim discusses the A-pillars on buses, which create significant blind spots. He recounts a personal near-miss, and the fatal 2010 Portland bus accident, to demonstrate how these blind spots can lead to collisions with pedestrians. Even after a $4 million settlement that assigned blame to the bus manufacturer, the design flaws persist.
• Corporate Messaging and Blame: Jim asserts that a "auto no-better corporate messaging" system prevails, excusing hazards in equipment while blaming employees for "human error." This allows transit agencies to continue buying dangerous buses, persecuting drivers while avoiding costly changes.

Notable Passages

• "I'm still reeling over the gist of Jesse Singer's main argument that we can reframe everything we used to think of as unavoidable and accidental and as the result of only carelessness, as rather being a unique confluence of humans meeting humans. Hazards. And that all too often, the greater the hazard, the more people were blamed. Why? Through the centuries, too many at the top found profit in avoiding mention of the hazards."
• "If that video shows that the driver made the required announcement, the judge will say that the falling path and the passenger, who again ignored the beeping alarms as well, was alerted to the ramp's deployment and therefore has no legal recourse for seeking compensation. As long as that announcement was made, at least legally, the agency is off the hook."
• "As the size of an organization grows, it becomes more difficult to distinguish incompetence from malice. And maybe even incompetence is the wrong word. Again, it's just a whole bunch of the right people not talking. To the right people. Because they have a job to do."
• "As long as the management and the agency in charge can blame any incident on human error on the auto no-betters, they are forced to hire. It seems transit agencies can buy ever more dangerous buses filled with ever greater hazards. And when things do go completely cattywampus, they can later simply persecute those loose nuts behind the wheel, those who auto no-better. So no expensive changes or embarrassing admissions of fault on their part, need ever be made."

Rhetorical Approach

Jim employs a combination of personal anecdote, expert testimony (via Singer and Fat Pencil Studio), analogy (the Swiss cheese model), and detailed technical explanations to build his argument. He frames the issue through the lens of his own experience as a bus driver, lending a credible insider perspective. He offers meticulous descriptions of bus design and policy, exposing the systemic flaws and absurdities.

Connections

• Explicitly references Jesse Singer's book, There Are No Accidents, The Deadly Rise of Injury and Disaster, Who Profits and Who Pays the Price.
• Explicitly references the expert witness report from Fat Pencil Studio regarding the 2010 Portland bus accident.
• Explicitly references Episode 240: There Are No Accidents (his previous episode) and the "auto no-better" messaging of advertising.
• Implied connection: the podcast's overall critique of advertising and media systems, as those systems promote consumerism and blind people to actual hazard.