The story “Packed Trains Safer In Crashes, Claim Rail Chiefs” is about the discovery of a reply from a spokesman at the Office of the Rail Regulator (ORR) to a letter written by a Conservative MP about the overcrowding on commuter trains from West Berkshire to London.
The story is yet another example of The Daily Mail’s use of ‘bandwagon journalism’ and its useless pointing out of the ‘facts’ about something that they have missed the point of and brushed aside without giving it it’s due attention. Not only that, but it shows that the comments made on the website in response to the story are as half-baked as the story itself.
The spokesman is quite right to have said what he said no matter how flustered it makes readers of The Daily Mail. After a short bit of investigative journalism I found two documents that the writer of this story may want to peruse before issuing a retraction.
The first is a very helpful document about crowd dynamics. You can find this document at http://www.crowddynamics.com/Egress/Overcrowding.htm If you look at section two of this document you will see that “Others are better placed to take measures to tackle the causes and consequences of overcrowding as they relate to passenger comfort, well being and customer care.” The proof comes when you actually look at the report “Implications of Overcrowding on Railways”. This report compiled by Dr. David Bottomley of the Health & Safety Laboratory on behalf of the Health & Safety Executive in 1999 can be found at http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/crr_pdf/1999/crr99225.pdf The report analyses the data from the Clapham Junction accident in 1988 and the Cannon Street Station accident of 1991. The report clearly states, “there may be a ‘cushioning effect’ provided by other passengers” and that “no evidence for an increase in upper torso injuries in overcrowded situations was found”.
These two documents show that this story is simply an excuse to bait the government and shows the inconsistency when dealing with the Health & Safety Executive. It is easy to ridicule their role in society when seemingly pointless legislation is brought in and easy to ignore it when it can prevent a bandwagon from forming.
Although I have dealt with the major crux of inaccuracy it is the little things that reek of bad journalism. The picture that comes with the online edition of this story has the caption “Safe?: Rail bosses c,aim packed trains are safer to crash it”. Not only is this terrible grammar and show typing skills not worthy of a chimpanzee, but also is inaccurate. No rail boss has said any such thing on record. Some would call this nit picking but I would ask if it was too much to expect from a supposedly ‘reputable’ newspaper? It is also very worrying that this is at least, the second edition of the story!
The lack of accuracy in this story is merely the tip of a very large iceberg. It seems to me that it shows an almost complete disregard for the truth and is a simple excuse for conservatism nay saying. It makes me think about all the other articles The Daily Mail may have neglected the facts of. Not only does this article raise simple questions of factual integrity, but it also raises the question of quality of online editions of newspapers and more general online news outlets.
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