Did you write that story?
No. But when I saw it, I thought that it was pretty obvious that whoever did write it had spent some time on the Action America web site. After all, I was the person who coined the term "Wham-Bam-Tram" on the Texas FR page, when I suggested that we come up with a catchy phrase to use as often as possible, in the hope of getting it heard by some of the media types that were going to be in town for the Super Bowl. It seems that it is indeed catching on, at least locally. I'm still waiting to hear it used on a national newscast. Imagine the egg on the faces down at City Hall, if that should happen.
Regardless of all the warnings about not standing on the top rung of a ladder and other safety precautions, people still fall off of ladders. But, if a new model of ladder came out and it became clear that the number of people falling off of that particular model of ladder was 5 to 10 times greater, per ladder sold, than any other model of ladder, the manufacturer would immediately recall the ladder, even before determining what the problem was with the ladder, to try to forestall any potential liability suits, especially class action suits. Failure to issue a timely recall would demonstrate negligence and that would dramatically increase the amount of any judgment. It's called cutting your losses.
But, since the Wham-Bam-Tram is a train that is publicly owned, instead of a privately owned ladder company and the Houston taxpayers, instead of Metro officials, will be responsible for paying the cost of any judgment against Metro, the Metro board just keeps the Wham-Bam-Tram in service, causing more and more accidents, making it much more likely that class action suit will be filed and significantly running up the eventual cost of judgments in such suits. It should be noted that at this time, the Wham-Bam-Tram is having accidents at a rate at least 6 times higher than any other city that has implemented light rail. But, at only 7.5 miles, it is also much shorter than the light rail lines of those others, so the rate per mile is even higher.
To protect the taxpayers, it's about time to start a petition for a special referendum, to do two things: Take the Wham-Bam-Tram immediately out of service, until the problem with it can be determined and repaired and
The Wham-Bam-Tram is a class action suit just itching to happen and if the city and Metro won't protect taxpayers from such an obvious threat, then taxpayers will have to protect themselves, by ousting those responsible.