Blog Post

Defective New Jersey Transit Trains Cause Anxiety


April 11, 2008
Topic: Train Accidents

If there were ever any indication of a terrible tragedy just waiting to happen, this would be it. At least six incidents of doors opening while the train was in motion have been reported on the New Jersey Transit trains. In most of the incidents, passengers were standing in the vestibule just inches from the doors, when the doors opened on their own. They remained open for almost a minute until conductors came scurrying to close them.

According to the NY Times, opening doors have not been the only terrifying ordeal passengers on New Jersey Transit trains have faced in the past two months. In February, as a train left the station, the third and fourth passenger cars came uncoupled leaving them unhooked to an engine. Both these types of incidents have not claimed any lives, at least not in recent times.

In 2006 however, a man was killed when he was caught in the doors of a New Jersey Transit train and then dragged along the platform. His family filed a lawsuit against New Jersey Transit, and the agency promptly fired two conductors and an engineer who were working on the train. According to Patrick Reilly, chief of the United Transportation Union, which represents the conductors, the two conductors were made scapegoats in the incident. The fault, he claims, lay with the faulty and inadequately maintained trains themselves.

Reilly is turning into a strong voice for more safety and maintenance checks on New Jersey Transit trains. It seems that in an attempt to better on-time performance records, New Jersey Transit is turning a dangerously blind eye to the maintenance of its equipment. Cars that should be in the yard or being serviced are routinely pressed into service, Reilly claims. To optimize efficiency, car models are sometime mixed up, leading to synchronization errors which were probably what caused the passengers cars to come unhooked from the engine back in February.

All these facts are frightening, and point to a disaster just waiting to happen. As recently as March, a man was caught between the train doors, but managed to extricate himself. What if he hadn't been able to free himself? Worse still, what if it had been a child trapped? Do we really have to wait until there is a horrible tragedy before we take action?

Thousands of passengers take transit trains every day to get to work. With the responsibility of so many passengers resting on the quality of its machines, New Jersey Transit has a responsibility to make sure that passengers are safe. Doors opening six times in two months is too large a number for comfort. The attitude of New Jersey Transit has been far from satisfactory, according to the NY Times report. Officials seem to be more concerned about painting a rosy picture of the safety scenario at the agency, than addressing the potential dangers of the issue. We hope the next time we read about this story, it will be about the trains being overhauled and serviced, not about an accident that didn't have to happen.

If you have been injured in a train related accident, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury lawyer. Contact an attorney at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.


The California personal injury attorneys at The Reeves Law Group represent victims of accidents, injuries and wrongful death throughout California from our offices in Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Diego County, Riverside County, San Bernardino County, Ventura County, Fresno County, Kern County, Sacramento County, San Fernando Valley, Long Beach, Antelope Valley, Torrance, Glendale, Bakersfield, Santa Ana, San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, Ontario, and Victorville.