February 4, 2006
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Tell you what, never mind fretting about flying, it's ferries I refuse to set a toe upon. We don't use 'em a lot here (except in the Pacific Northwest and New England, I believe), but in much of the rest of the world they are a common form of transportation.
And they regularly sink, killing dozens, hundreds, and occasionally a thousand or more people at a time.
A plane crash that kills two hundred people is considered to be catastrophic in nature.....what does that make the ferry sinking of yesterday, then? It appears one thousand souls perished in that tragedy.
Comments (4)
I agree! I hate ferries and I'm not so fond of bridges, but have almost always lived in an area where I have to traverse the durned things!
We're fortunate to live in a country that has standards for transportation, and safety checks. It reminds me of a parody I once read about foreign calamities: The headline was something like, "Bus in Bangladesh strikes curb, 3,000 killed." How could a ferry in this day and age not have enough life boats? And how could there not be time to send a distress signal? Were there even enough life jackets?
I read that the passengers who had donned life jackets were instructed to remove them, if you can believe it! And the captain escaped in a life boat, abandoning the ferry.
What a creep.
You're quite right about our having standards other countries do not, BTW; really, it was foreign ferries of which I was thinking. But if they're not sinking in Egypt, they are in Eastern Europe, western Europe, who knows where all?
Don't forget the Outer Banks - ferries there, too.
I like ferries, although I've had few enough occassios to use them.
It is a horrible tragedy.
You're right about the perspective on the numbers of those who've died compared to how we fuss here. The American public DEMANDS safety, and darned tootin'. Think of that tour boat accident in the Adirondacks - it was sad, but it doesn't begin to compare to this kind of accident, yet, at least here on the East Coast, we're still hearing about how that tour boat accident is being investigated.
We're spoiled, aren't we?
me<><
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