THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

The airlines industry is a prime example of government oversight that is unable to update rules, standards and laws until enough people die. But it is not the only industry so affected. The railroad industry provides us with the latest example of "tombstone regulating".

The rail industry asked the Department of Transportation three years ago to write new regulations for railroad tank cars that were carrying the country’s nascent oil boom.

In the two years that followed, state and local officials and the National Transportation Safety Board also urged the department to take action.

But the DOT did not begin the rulemaking process until last September, two months after 47 people were killed in a violent inferno when a trainload of North Dakota crude oil left the tracks in Quebec and exploded.

The department’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration is working on the new regulations, and its sister agency, the Federal Railroad Administration, last week announced a series of voluntary measures to improve the safety of crude oil shipments. However, it might be another year before the tank car rules take effect.

It wouldn’t be the first time that rail safety regulations were delayed until tragedy struck. Four decades ago, the DOT required tougher standards for certain types of tank cars carrying flammable gases such as propane. Regulators gave the industry a three-year deadline, but did little to enforce it.

On Feb. 24, 1978, two months after that deadline passed, 16 people were killed in Waverly, Tenn., when a derailed tank car of propane blew up. The accident claimed the lives of the small town’s police chief, fire chief and half its fire department. Many others were badly burned. Only then were the improvements made.

“Washington’s very reactive,” said Mary Schiavo, a DOT inspector general in the Clinton administration. “Most reactive of all is DOT.”

Safety is just a matter of having enough people die. This is not to say that had their efforts begun earlier, those good people in Quebec would still be alive. But you never know. As it stands now, whenever they begin to work on something, we do know how many people have died.