Cabarrus Cheap Seats

Jeff Taylor of the John Locke Foundation Blog on Charlotte issues - The Meck Deck - had an article titled “Killer Trains“.  Here’s a taste:

When Randal O’Toole visited Charlotte last month he said that light rail operation means fatalities. Last night, Charlotte got its first.

As we’ve pointed out repeatedly, light rail is inherently dangerous given the way it mixes fast moving, hard-to-stop trains with vehicles and pedestrians at open crossings. In fact, the only way to prevent injuries and deaths is to simply hope the general public learns to stay out of the way of the train. That’s it.

Now that seems bad until you read the rest of the story from the Observer:

A man sitting on the light-rail track in south Charlotte died Sunday night after authorities said he was struck by a train — the first time a person or vehicle has been hit by one of the Lynx cars.

Notice “sitting on the light-rail track”.  Yeah, it’s what you think.

The train’s driver had begun to slow down before the incident, Kinard said.

Kinard said two crossarms had lowered and the bells and lights were activated before the train reached Old Pineville Road. The driver also had blown his horn when approaching.

But the man reportedly did not move.

Of course, Jeff failed to mention this rather important point.  He gave the impression that light rail was inherently dangerous.  It doesn’t take too much research to uncover that traveling by light rail is safer than using a private vehicle by a factor of four using fatalities by person-mile.

Before the election, he and Tara Servatius did a great job about the unfair treatment by the Charlotte Observer towards the transit tax repeal crowd.  Tara Servatius pointed out the conflict-of-interest that existed between the Observer and the Transit Tax crowd.  His coverage of the remarkably unfair Kevin Siers cartoon in the Observer was eye-opening.

They had the high-road - until now. 

Jeff violated the most important rule of blogging - he insulted his readers by assuming they’re idiots.  He thought it was enough to show that he linked to the article and just ignore a fundamental part of the article. 

Mr. Taylor: we expect more than this.