The Los Angeles train accident is a horrible tragedy not only in terms of human suffering, but also in the context of security infrastructure. Consider the news now emerging:

Higgins said she believed the crash could have been prevented with technology that stops a train on the track when a signal is disobeyed. The technology was not in place where the collision occurred.

“I believe this technology could have prevented the accident. If he ran the signal the train would have been stopped. I’ve seen it tested. It makes a difference,” she said.

In addition, investigators are probing whether the conductor was texting on his cell phone, and while the engineer and conductor were not behaving as expected:

Higgins said audio recordings from the commuter train indicate a period of silence as it passed the last two signals before the fiery wreck, a time when the engineer and the conductor should have been performing verbal safety checks.

She cautioned, however, that the train may have entered a dead zone where the recording was interrupted.

Plenty of warning signals and plenty of time to react and avert disaster, yet 26 people are dead. The simplicity of the safety controls missing from this infrastructure should be an embarrassment to the US. Clearly rail transportation in America is being neglected in many areas of technology, not least of all in security.