"Anybody can build a bridge that stands. But only an engineer can build a bridge that _barely_ stands."
A picture of the worst day of a professional engineer's life
11–19 of 19 posts
Re: A picture of the worst day of a professional engineer's life
#12How is it the worst? Six people died and no one went to prison. NTSB report conveniently blamed everyone (FIU, FIGG, FDOT, MCM, and Bolton Perez), so as a result no one was punished. They just started building new bridge in same spot. I just killed six people and all I got was a strongly worded letter and increased insurance premiums is not the worst day in engineers life.
Sounds like the worst day of your life must have been pretty unbelievably bad.
Re: A picture of the worst day of a professional engineer's life
#13How is it the worst? Six people died and no one went to prison. NTSB report conveniently blamed everyone (FIU, FIGG, FDOT, MCM, and Bolton Perez), so as a result no one was punished. They just started building new bridge in same spot. I just killed six people and all I got was a strongly worded letter and increased insurance premiums is not the worst day in engineers life.
Simply "6 people killed and I had something to do woth it" would do it for me and make it the worst day of my life (by far).
Feeling bad, and actually being bad, isn't the same thing.
That's why punishment is required - both as a deterrant, and to inpart (to the people who suffered) a sense of justice being done.
Re: A picture of the worst day of a professional engineer's life
#14Interesting.
> On June 14, 2019, the NTSB revoked OSHA party status because of a breach of party participation rules. On June 11, contrary to party agreement obligations, OSHA released a report to the public that contained large portions of nonpublic draft NTSB material and also failed to provide investigative photographs to the NTSB as required by its status as a party to the investigation
Re: A picture of the worst day of a professional engineer's life
#15How is it the worst? Six people died and no one went to prison. NTSB report conveniently blamed everyone (FIU, FIGG, FDOT, MCM, and Bolton Perez), so as a result no one was punished. They just started building new bridge in same spot. I just killed six people and all I got was a strongly worded letter and increased insurance premiums is not the worst day in engineers life.
In the same vein, I remember a rash of train accidents where the engineers were simply derelict in their duty, but the entire world seemed to rush to defend them because, oh my God!, accidents happened where positive train control systems were not installed.
I don't think even so much as a reprimand was given to people who failed to the one thing they are supposed to do: Control the speed of the train.
Re: A picture of the worst day of a professional engineer's life
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you insinuating that accidentally killing 6 people with engineering oversight is not a bad day for the engineer that designed that bridge, via sarcasm?
Point is, it was a worse day for the 6 dead people and their families.
Who here is denying that?
Re: A picture of the worst day of a professional engineer's life
#17Re: A picture of the worst day of a professional engineer's life
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Simply "6 people killed and I had something to do woth it" would do it for me and make it the worst day of my life (by far).
Feeling bad, and actually being bad, isn't the same thing. That's why punishment is required - both as a deterrant, and to inpart (to the people who suffered) a sense of justice being done.
That’s retribution, not justice. There is no payment or compensation for lives lost that makes people whole. Many problems can’t be fixed through punishment, and this is one of them. Instead ask “why” until you hit the root cause, and address that.
Thankfully infrastructure collapse is very rare. So let’s not lose our perspective here.
Re: A picture of the worst day of a professional engineer's life
#19How is it the worst? Six people died and no one went to prison. NTSB report conveniently blamed everyone (FIU, FIGG, FDOT, MCM, and Bolton Perez), so as a result no one was punished. They just started building new bridge in same spot. I just killed six people and all I got was a strongly worded letter and increased insurance premiums is not the worst day in engineers life.
Seems like you're operating under the assumption that all involved are sociopaths who would feel no guilt over deaths they caused. This is, in my opinion, a bad assumption and reflective of a terrible worldview on your part.