Rob
Sherman Advocacy
Click on either picture for larger image and picture description.
Rob
Sherman Advocacy
Click on either picture for larger image and picture description.
"Fighting injustice, one victory at a time."
Liberal News & Commentary reported extensively last year on the scandal of how dozens of mass transit customers are needlessly killed each year in this country and thousands are needlessly maimed severely, solely because busses and trains don't have seat belts. On Thursday, it happened again, this time in northeast Florida.
Supporters
bring you Rob Sherman Advocacy.
Click here to join them.
Amtrak's Auto Train derailed at 5:08 p.m. on Thursday afternoon when it failed to successfully negotiate a curve. Even though pictures from the crash site show that the train's passenger cars remained virtually intact, four people were killed and 159 injured, many critically, because the passengers were tossed violently within their train cars when the cars flopped about during the derailment.
The Florida Times-Union is the leading newspaper in the area of Florida where the derailment occurred. The Times-Union is based in Jacksonville. Yesterday, the Times-Union published a story entitled 4 dead, more than a hundred injured in Florida Amtrak derailment. In Paragraph 8 of that story, a person identified as Bernie Morgan was quoted as saying, "We just started hurtling and left the track and the next thing we knew, we were bouncing off the walls.''
That's how people get killed or injured. They bounce off the walls, other seats, other people and other things, many of which have very hard surfaces (like the roof and the floor). Even after the train stops moving, people keep flying about until they crash into something hard enough to stop them from moving. This often results in severely broken bodies, lots of spilled blood, horrific pain and tremendous suffering, all needlessly inflicted because Amtrak is too cheap to install seat belts on their trains and because Congress has, to this point, been too gutless to require Amtrak to install seat belts on their trains.
If the passengers had been secured in their seats with seat belts, surely none of them would have been killed and most injuries would have been minor in nature.
In the April 9th edition of Liberal News & Commentary, I told you about my tour of thirteen southern states that my daughter and took less than a month ago. I wanted very much to have gone by Amtrak. Instead of doing the driving myself and paying motels for a lousy place to sleep, we could have spent our time looking at America from out the window of a beautiful Amtrak train and then continued traveling while I slept. I refused, however, to risk my daughter's life (and mine, too) by traveling across the ground at 60-80 mph without the protection of seat belts. Those people who were killed on Thursday could just have easily been Dawn and Daddy if I had made the foolish decision to patronize Amtrak service that did not include seat belts.
I will get back in touch with my contacts in the United States Congress and again say, "When?" When will they require seatbelts on Amtrak trains, and school busses and Greyhound busses, too? How many more will die or be maimed because of their failure to act? I'm glad that they've got a trillion dollars to give to the wealthiest 1% of Americans and billions of dollars to donate to airlines like United and American, but what about Homeland Security? Isn't homeland security about protecting the lives of Americans from preventable death and injury?
People will continue to die and be maimed needlessly until my campaign succeeds. Busses and trains are going to continue to crash on occasion, but because of the large mass of the vehicles, passengers could easily be protected from virtually all deaths and injuries if only they had seatbelts.
I know that you are legitimately too busy with your own life to get involved directly with my campaign to get seatbelts on all forms of public transportation, and that's OK, but do you suppose that you could get involved, indirectly, by supporting Rob Sherman Advocacy so that I have the funds necessary to offset the costs of pursuing these types of issues in your behalf?
Your help is needed now. Here's how to contact me to become a supporter of Rob Sherman Advocacy. Thanks, in advance, for your support.
Rob Sherman P. O. Box
7410
Buffalo Grove, IL 60089-7410
A post office box is used
because
the street address uses a curb mail box,
which is not secure.
Telephone: (847) 870-0700
Fax: (847) 870-1156
E-mail: rob followed by the at symbol followed by robsherman dot com
