Deadly commutes

While Pittsburgh's Port Authority continues to struggle with budget defects and red tape, the problems of Allegheny County's mass transit network seem relatively minor compared to two other incidents which occurred this week. In Manhattan, two subway lines were crippled by a fire in a transit control room started by a homeless person over the weekend. Not more than three days later, a commuter train in a Los Angeles suburb collided with an SUV parked on the tracks, causing it to derail and collide with another train, killing ten and injuring nearly 200. Overall, it has not been a good week for mass transit.

Regarding the incident in New York City, while terribly tragic, it remains an accident. According to the New York Times article, the blaze began as a small fire started by a homeless person in an attempt to keep warm. That was as far as the Times went, while a New York Post editorial had some harsh rhetoric regarding a need for the removal of vagrants from subways. Though true that people should not be wandering about in a subway tunnel and using it for shelter, the Post continues in that grand tradition of the conservative rag in finding a scapegoat, rather than examining the larger picture. New York's subway equipment is fragile and antiquated. Had a bum not burned it to a cinder, it probably would have crumbled to dust the next time a group of subway rats decided to have a parade across it. This equipment, so vital to the movement of the trains should have been upgraded years - even decades - ago, not to mention sealed in fireproof boxes. The vagrant may have been the catalyst for this catastrophe, but he is not the sole cause and does not deserve to be crucified. Frankly, I don't blame the guy for going into hiding.

On the other hand, 25 year old Juan Manuel Alvarez of Compton should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. A charge of manslaughter is out of the question, as his actions were pre-meditated; he should be tried for multiple counts of murder. From an Associated Press article published today, "Authorities said [Alvarez] parked his sport utility vehicle on the tracks and got out before a Metrolink train smashed into the Jeep Grand Cherokee. The train then derailed and collided with another train going in the opposite direction. That train also jumped the tracks." It goes on to quote authorities speculating that they believed Alvarez had intended to commit suicide, but changed his mind at the last minute. A Reuters article published this evening states that Alvarez had been cutting himself before he parked his vehicle on the tracks and will indeed be charged with 10 counts of murder.

While this is indeed a greatly upsetting disaster, what particularly irks me is that it was completely avoidable and its root cause was one very selfish and cowardly man's "cry for help." If one is truly committed to killing oneself, then a suicide attempt will be a success, end of story. Someone who really wants to die will not go out with a bang. They will extinguish their own life with all of the aplomb with which one extinguishes a the flame on a candle.

Studies show that most so-called suicidal people don't really want to die per se, but instead desire a means of escape or, more commonly, a means of gaining attention. Unfortunately, these cries for attention usually have the desired result: attention (albeit, negative) and in the mind of the mentally ill, any behaviour that is reinforced is behaviour which bears repeating.

Juan Manuel Alvarez will now have plenty of attention. What he did was selfish and stupid - putting one's own life at risk is one matter, but never does one have the right to endanger the lives of others. As soon as Alvarez parked his vehicle on the train tracks, knowing full well that a train was scheduled to arrive in the near future, he became a criminal. He took his own sick and selfish "cry for help" and played it out in the most grotesque way possible: he spared his own life at the very last second at the cost of ten innocent lives, not to mention the pain and suffering of nearly 200 others. Alvarez deserves to have those lives on his head via a conviction in a court of law. Furthermore, he should not be sentenced to death, but sentenced to be locked in a padded room for the rest of his natural lifespan with nary a shoelace to injure himself with. On the walls of his cell there should be paired photographs of his victims - one before shot of how they looked prior to their doomed commute and one after composite of their mangled bodies.