Citizen-advocate George Swimmer spent twenty years investigating the causes behind railroad collisions. What he discovered is a tangled mess of both inadvertent and intentional mismanagement.

In "Railroad Collisions," Swimmer reveals his findings. He faults the railroads themselves for poor risk management, but the industry is by no means the only culpable party. The Federal Railroad Administration's timid dealings with railroad companies impairs meaningful changes, while the National Transportation Safety Board's findings in many of their accident investigations are woefully, fatally...