HIGH SPEED RAIL

Transportation is one of the leading causes of death in the U.S.  1.2 million deaths world wide in 2002 with six million accidents each year in U.S., costing us around $164.2 billion each year. From 1979 to 2009 there have been over 1.3 billion deaths world wide from automobile accidents and in 1979 there were over 50,000 deaths in the U.S.  In 2009 we had a little less than 34,000 deaths in the U.S., so there is no question that safety features on vehicles and roadways have been improving year after year.  However, it is still one of the leading causes of deaths in U.S.  So, the question is what is it we can do to minimize deaths and what is the best way to do it.  Are automobiles the best way to travel?  I believe we had it right, when we came up with trains.  Subways and high speed rails are both very safe and can be improved upon.  I believe we need more transit and high speed rails with more public transportation systems.  Commutes could be fast and easy, they just need to be perfected.  If we could get a train to reach speeds of 300 mph or more going through every major city then we could not only make travel safer, but we could save on gas, oil, lives, travel time and etc.  Of course the ideal trains were talking about would be run on electricity, with possibly gas or coal backup.  Now I am not saying that we shouldn’t have our own vehicles, because we should be able to get up and go whenever we want, but there are more efficient ways to travel and with so much inefficiency with travel times, we should have an alternative.  Now, there are a lot of people that work for the automobile industry, so what I would recommend for those that would lose a job because of this change, would be to have training programs to convert them from automobiles work to rail work.   I believe that with China’s and other countries examples of high speed rails we will soon begin our own high speed rails.