“Air on Board Diesel Trains Is Five Times Worse Than Beside a Busy Street.” That headline for an April 4, 2019, Chemistry World article would surely grab the attention of railroad engineers, conductors, trackmen and others who work on and around freight trains. But is breathing in diesel exhaust really all that harmful? Yes. On…
U.S. railroads were among the leading users of asbestos insulation and brake components throughout the 20th century. The toxic, cancer-causing material could still be found on trains and in rail yards well into the 2000s because federal rules aimed at ending nearly all industrial and commercial uses of asbestos were issued with loopholes that allowed…
Sometimes you have to laugh. Even as a personal injury and wrongful death attorney who has represented victims of drunk drivers since the mid-1980s, I still chuckle when remembering the story about a man who was found passed out drunk and behind the wheel of a pickup truck with its motor running in the parking…
You hear all the time that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. The proverb comes from the observation of poet Alexander Pope that “a little learning is a dangerous thing.” Both versions of the adage describe the harm done to generations of railroad workers who knew how asbestos was being used at their worksites…
Multivehicle pileups and head-on collisions make headlines. Single-vehicle crashes fill up emergency rooms. As much as people rightly worry about negligent and reckless drivers crashing into them after running red lights, failing to slow down and smashing into them from behind when traffic backs up on the highway, or driving drunk, the large majority of…