Root Causes

The traffic light turned yellow, and she slowed to a stop. But the guy in the car behind her was evidently more in a rush than she, and he squealed around her left side, cutting off another car in the other lane, racing thru the the intersection with the light now well into yellow.

She saw him coming in her rear view mirror, coming up on her bumper as she was slowing to a stop. It scared her, and when she saw him swerving into the other lane, she turned her wheel a bit away from him. He wouldn't have made it if she hadn't moved to get out of his way.

It happens every day. Every day. And many people aren't as lucky as he was, as lucky as she was. Tens, hundreds, thousands of people die every year in automobile accidents.

There are idiots like this guy, racing to get to work 30 seconds earlier so they can pace the parking lot looking for the space nearest to the front door. Guys like this guy who make a conscious decision to act recklessly, who decide their schedules, their fun, their hurry, their rush is worth the threat they pose and the death they bring. They consciously decide to act this way, and thousands of people die. Yet it continues day after day.

What kind of fault tree do we need to stop this slaughter? What kind of impoundment of data do we need to understand the root causes? Where is the risk analysis? Where are the cost benefit studies of idiots like these.

This is no foam insulation falling off an external tank. This is no micrometeorite. There is no need to sift thru ratty telemetry to understand these tragedies, to discover the root causes. We know why it happens. Yet it continues day after day.

And in the meantime, while all these deaths tick off like clockwork, there are some who say that the loss of Columbia demonstrates reckless failure at NASA. They cry loudly that enough is enough, that until the root causes can be suppressed with absolute certainty no more Shuttles may fly.

I share their motivations. I share their yearning to understand why. And I wonder at their selective blindness.

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