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I agree.
California is now trying to get a waiver on some passenger rail regs that will improve economics and operations. Supposedly, if this works, it will have national implications.
Unfortunately, I am not an expert on the delat between US, EU and Japanese rail regulations, but I know people that are :-)
Best Hopes for "The Rule of Reason" in regulations,
Alan
Well, here's the "Reason". Publicity and hysteria go up exponentially with the number of deaths in a single incident:
3000 deaths in auto accidents: yawn. Happens every day (worldwide.) Move on, please.
3000 deaths ten or twenty at a time in bus crashes: local publicity for some days; wider publicity perhaps for a news cycle, if children died.
3000 deaths 200 at a time in plane crashes: worldwide publicity and incessant news crawls for several days for each crash. Hundreds of millions spent by regulators dissecting causes.
3000 deaths all at once at WTC: worldwide publicity and incessant analysis for next several decades. Toss existing legal systems into trash and remake entire world.
Pardon my cynicism, but the overregulation that follows naturally from this sort of thinking is one more reason why I think the US Constitution had the right idea (long since abandoned) in setting up a limited government.