Another Disappointment From Veolia

Last Tuesday, a group of about 35 people who had been harmed in the Sept. 12, 2008 Metrolink crash arrived at the Ventura County Courthouse for a meeting with the main counsel for Veolia, the company that was in charge of Metrolink employees. This group had some questions that still had not been adequately addressed by the French company.

But the Veolia representative failed to show up for the meeting with little advance warning. His excuse for being a no-show was that he was concerned that the small private meeting was expanding.

After all, he said in an email to the group, U.S. Rep. Elton Gallegly was now going to attend along with the media. This was not what he had agreed to and so he did not attend. I doubt he ever intended to actually face the victims because it took so little to keep him away.

The purpose of the meeting was to come face-to-face with a high-placed Veolia representative and request some sort of apology for the terrible harm and damages caused by their employee.

The federal law governing the crash set the ceiling of a total of $200 million per accident. However, when the law was passed, Congress did not envision a disaster in which 24 passengers were killed and another 135 were injured, some quite severely.

According to the judge who distributed the money to the victims last summer, the amount was painfully inadequate and would not cover the medical costs of many of the victims. Some of the injuries will require a lifetime of medical care. Many of the dead were young adults.

Last summer, Gallegly pleaded with his fellow members of Congress to look at the injustice of the arbitrary compensation ceiling. Despite the common sense and fundamental humane premise that these victims should never have to face financial disaster due to their medical costs for something that was entirely foreseeable and preventable, Congress was not interested. After all, they said, the country is broke and we can’t afford to make an exception for a few individuals.

In the face of such a peculiar and offensive dismissal of their very real pain, these victims had no legal options left. So they hoped that the company charged with oversight of the employees would see the injustice that was occurring and do the right thing.

Those employees included the engineer who was busy texting a teenager about letting him drive the train that evening. This engineer, whom the passengers had every reason to assume was a well-trained professional, didn’t bother to look up when he blew through a red light in Chatsworth. As the Metrolink train approached a blind curve at approximately 45 miles per hour, a freight train with the right of way was also traveling on the same track at the same speed. With only a couple seconds to brake, the two engines slammed into each other with such force that the engine of the freight train pierced and traveled all the way into the first passenger car.

Yet the Veolia representative was so offended by the presence of the public by way of the media that he stood up the very people who have been harmed by his company’s failure to fire that engineer after they had previously been told more than once he had a habit of texting while driving the train.

Congress should be reminded every day that they have their swell jobs only because the little people like these victims chose to vote for them. They should be publicly shamed at their refusal to even consider minimal additional compensation to the victims.

As for Veolia, I can’t write what I actually think. Shame on all of them, on everyone who has been in a position to help and has crawled back into their spider holes while claiming they, too, are victims of the system. Shame.