[HN Gopher] Railway Safety Posters (2022)
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Railway Safety Posters (2022)
Author : DemiGuru
Score : 147 points
Date : 2023-08-17 15:47 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thaitrainguide.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thaitrainguide.com)
| kd5bjo wrote:
| Iceland has some PSAs running right now about e-scooter safety
| that have a similar vibe:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSUNZ3quITA&list=PL3prAqz9YE...
| FriedPickles wrote:
| It's easy to laugh at the Thai posters for how obvious the
| precautions seem. But this is a good reminder that there are
| new technologies today for which we don't yet know the
| "obvious" precautions.
| Animats wrote:
| Many people are unaware that railroad switches are not only
| remotely controlled, but powerful enough to crush ballast
| gravel that gets in the way.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I didn't feel the precautions were particularly obvious.
| Sure, maybe individually. But in total, I think they serve as
| a very potent reminder: trains are dangerous, and your
| mindset around them should be one of precaution.
|
| In many places like Thailand and India, trains are a much
| more commonplace part of everyday life. Familiarity breeds
| complacency, and these posters serve as a potent reminder of
| how dangerous trains actually are.
|
| The same dynamic exists with cars in the US. One thing I've
| found helpful is that, every time I get into a car, I just
| take a single deep breath and remind myself I am piloting a
| potentially lethal machine. I find it really helps put me in
| the right mindset to take better appropriate care when I'm
| driving.
| schoen wrote:
| Maybe, compared to those in more developed countries, more
| of the trains in Thailand and India run through rights-of-
| way with less separation from places that people and
| animals are commonly found? Or maybe more of their
| crossings used to lack warning equipment and barriers?
| Animats wrote:
| I grew up on the south side of Chicago, where there are
| tracks at ground level with no barriers. How to walk
| along and cross railroad tracks was covered in first
| grade. Chicago has so much railroad track that this was
| as important as how to cross streets. The tracks near
| where I grew up are still unfenced and at ground level.
| cranekam wrote:
| This is more like it. The Thai rail network is not that
| extensive so trains probably aren't part of daily life
| for that many. India has a huge rail network. In both
| cases, though, train tracks are much more accessible than
| in developed countries and it's common to see trains
| clanking right past people walking along. In India people
| happily walk across tracks at stations and hang off the
| side of moving trains.
|
| Compare this to the UK and Switzerland, two places I have
| lived with extensive rail networks. I can't think of
| anywhere that the train tracks aren't clearly separated
| from everything else -- either by fencing or raised
| platforms or level crossings with barriers. I have never
| had to think "better look out for a train" living in
| these places.
|
| Edit: Zurich does have a freight train that runs down an
| inner-city street a couple of times a day. It goes very
| slowly and has many staff monitoring:
|
| https://youtu.be/RWT58TBAdEw
| netsharc wrote:
| Damn, Happy Tree Friends vibes...
| Modified3019 wrote:
| We need a poster for here in Oregon to inform the public that
| they should shouldn't shamble into the road without looking, and
| should cross with due haste.
|
| You'd think this was something to learn as a two year old, but I
| guess not.
| [deleted]
| tialaramex wrote:
| Why? Humans were here first, the cars should adapt to the
| existing presence of humans. "Jay walking" is a way for car
| makers to pretend that the problem they're causing is someone
| else's fault.
| ipsin wrote:
| Reminds me of this old favorite, Chrante Deti.
| http://cardhouse.com/a/distress/distress.htm
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| The 'Dumb Ways to Die' video from a few years ago, from
| Australia, was quite funny and memorable (which I think is the
| aim for these campaigns):
|
| https://youtu.be/IJNR2EpS0jw
|
| Be safe around trains.
| mojo74 wrote:
| To be fair BPI were pretty good at scaring the absolute shit out
| of the general British public in the seventies
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0xmSV6aq0g&t=2s
| stickfigure wrote:
| Especially terrifying, in modern light, to watch Jimmy Saville
| narrate _child safety_ videos.
| kakwa_ wrote:
| In France, during the late 90ies/early 00ies, we got a bunch of
| "quite direct" Road Safety ads.
|
| The one that traumatized me the most as a child was:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpNMrcgiAdw
| MarkusWandel wrote:
| For sheer shock value, little can beat the texting-while-
| driving one. No direct link but you can google "british texting
| while driving ad". The NZ safe driving ads are also really
| something. "new zealand safe driving shock ads" brings up one
| that really triggers, but then again, both the above
| particularly work if you're a parent.
| deepspace wrote:
| For shock value, the Canadian workplace safety ad featuring
| the chef comes pretty close:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noFCekWiUGE
| dspillett wrote:
| I assume https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0LCmStIw9E is the
| one you are thinking of (there was a shorter version that
| aired in TV ad breaks).
|
| The Think! campaign was always pretty on-the-nose, as you
| need to be sometimes to get these messages across. The
| seatbelt and in-town speed limit ones stick in the mind too:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKHY69AFstE and
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDpOAXfangI respectively.
|
| The memorably stark tone and the frequency they were on TV
| made these spots ripe for parody, for example this one from
| Monkey Dust: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsOk9Ln1qOY
| nayuki wrote:
| I really like this PSA from the British THINK!, juxtaposing
| celebration and darkness:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CERT0xNFGo4
| post-it wrote:
| I'm partial to this Irish one:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNL6t-Eu-IY
| BytesAndGears wrote:
| Wow, that first one is genuinely horrific, I can't believe
| they had the guts to release something so strong. Glad they
| did though, it probably saved a ton of lives.
| lostlogin wrote:
| The New Zealand ACC public safety advertising campaign was
| gold.
|
| My favourite is the one at 1min 30 but all are complete
| classics here.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=105&v=9ciomPP8MyE&.
| ..
| drcongo wrote:
| This terrified me for decades after seeing on tea-time TV:
| http://www.weirdretro.org.uk/the-finishing-line-the-banned-p...
| physhster wrote:
| This is hilarious because Thai trains are anything BUT fast.
| usrusr wrote:
| All the more likely to underestimate the danger.
|
| We are not good at estimating the speed of large objects
| because so much of our perception of the speed of objects
| happens in "units of relative length over time". When a small
| dog walks beside a horse the dog will appear much faster.
| mikeInAlaska wrote:
| I remember a Thai train slowing to a near standstill, followed
| by an excessive tilt to the side for a couple car lengths of
| movement, then back up to speed.
|
| Also remember lines of Thai people being stopped by a guard
| with a machine gun for searches while my pale colored wife and
| I were waved right through into the train station.
|
| I would like to go back to Thailand it was a fantastic
| vacation.
| teddyh wrote:
| For forklifts, see: _Staplerfahrer Klaus_
| <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psAWGv5O7Zs>
|
| (If you have not seen it, I _implore_ you to watch the entire
| thing.)
| deepspace wrote:
| The one with the bridge reminds me of the trestle scene in "Stand
| by Me".
| Lammy wrote:
| I like how the last few seem like a sabotage manual in disguise.
| Do not throw stones at the trains. Do not destroy communication
| equipment. Do not bring animals to tend on the tracks. Makes
| sense since these were from 1965-1968:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Thailan...
| sneak wrote:
| Does telling someone who might lie on the tracks to not lie on
| the tracks have much of an effect?
|
| Are there people who lie on train tracks who are unaware that
| doing so is dangerous?
| xwdv wrote:
| When you're tired, it's comforting to lay on a track rather
| than hard ground. The wood provides a stable level surface, and
| tracks are cleaned regularly. You can doze off for a nap if you
| know trains don't regularly come by.
| the_sleaze9 wrote:
| You what
| bornfreddy wrote:
| Thank you for providing an alternative view of the world, it
| would never have occurred to me otherwise! Enjoy your nap and
| stay safe.
| atlantic wrote:
| While driving in a remote area of India late one night, I came
| across an entire family (from the Dalit caste) sleeping in the
| middle of the road. Either they had no home, or they were
| travelling. The location was warm (the asphalt held daytime
| heat) and clean (the road being bordered by dense jungle).
| Given the context, it made sense.
| myrmidon wrote:
| I feel this misunderstands the posters way of working in the
| same way that a lot of people misunderstand how ads operate:
| Just because you don't suddenly get an irresistible urge to
| drink a gallon of Coca Cola after seeing an ad for it does not
| mean it wasn't effective-- you are not looking to cause
| monumental shifts in your targets worldview or values, instead
| you slowly nudge all their future decisionmaking in a favorable
| direction... slightly.
| lostlogin wrote:
| I'd like to see the numbers. Maimed and deaths pre poster and
| post poster. I have a sneaking idea that the numbers will be
| similar.
| binarymax wrote:
| Just in general, while it's not easy to notice in these specific
| posters, Thai art is absolutely incredible. It's strikingly and
| fundamentally different from the art in the West. If you ever
| have the chance to visit Thailand, visit their contemporary art
| galleries.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| Can you recommend some galleries in Bangkok? I'm visiting in
| November. I already have MOCA on my list, is that enough or
| should I plan more?
| binarymax wrote:
| A little while since I've been, so I recommend first checking
| out TCDC: https://www.tcdc.or.th/ then asking around for
| other fresh exhibits in the area
| [deleted]
| MarkusWandel wrote:
| I wonder how many ways these could get attacked in modern
| litigation culture. I can think of two.
|
| 1. The graphical injuries shown are an admission by the railway
| company that such injuries can happen, increasing its liability
| when something does.
|
| 2. The graphical nature of the posters could "trigger" traumatic
| experiences in someone...
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| Have you been to Thailand?
|
| Nobody is going to court for _triggering_ in Thailand.
|
| The insane culture of litigation in USA is very much a USA
| thing.
| pineaux wrote:
| This is the reason Americans are losing their edge. There is
| heavy risk aversion. It is a cultural dead-end. Risk needs to
| be counterbalanced by securities, but risk cannot altogether be
| avoided. Avoiding risk has a very heavy intended punishment.
|
| The other side of the same coin is also not good, to take too
| much risk. But all in all, current American culture looks
| insane from a distance. Especially concerning how kids are
| reared. Recipe for drug addiction and depressions.
| petesergeant wrote:
| > The graphical nature of the posters
|
| No country's media takes "if it bleeds it leads" quite as
| seriously as _muang Thai_ , which features gore as front page
| news very regularly, and if they censored a particularly gory
| one, you can be sure your neighbour will post the uncensored
| version on FB.
|
| Literally the only thing more compelling to a Thai newspaper
| reader is a photo of a staged crime re-enactment with the
| suspect surrounded by policemen and various people pointing at
| important things.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Also the simple PR / marketing issue... Discouraging customers
| and making more more NIMBY activity
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Are you literally making up a guy to get mad at here? There are
| still intense and even gruesome safety PSAs all over the world.
| bluGill wrote:
| Generally modern litigation assume you follow the following
| steps: design the problem out, guard it out, then warn it out.
| Those are ordered steps, so if you can fix the problem with a
| different design you can't put guards on and call it good, but
| if there is danger remaining after looking at the design and
| adding guards then a warning sign is a way out of liability.
| Many of the dangers listed cannot be solved with a design or
| guards, so signs noting the danger are the correct response and
| will be used in court to show they knew of the danger and tried
| their best to prevent it in the only way left.
|
| Note that these are from the mid 1960s - there is technology
| today to design out some of those hazards that didn't exist
| then. Platform screen doors for example didn't exist back then,
| but because they do now you can no longer warn about someone
| getting to close to the platform edge, you need to design it
| out by adding those doors (such doors do not work on curved
| platforms so signs are still useful for some really old
| stations that are impossible to remodel). For all the others
| you have a good case against the railroad if you get hit by a
| train since they should have doors, fences, and quad arm
| crossing guards which by design make it nearly impossible to
| get on the track and thus there is no danger of getting hit.
| mdturnerphys wrote:
| The Thai anti-smoking ads are pretty straightforward/gruesome as
| well, and cigarette companies are required to include them on
| their packaging.
| JonChesterfield wrote:
| There's one about giving your dog lung cancer which is pretty
| hard to forget
| gumby wrote:
| My favorite rail poster of all time was an Indian dual-use one
| from the early 80s. It had a picture of mum, dad, daughter, and
| son walking across the platform together each carrying a single
| suitcase.
|
| Along the top it said "Travel Light: Plan your Trip."
|
| Across the bottom it said "Plan your Family".
|
| I so wanted to take a photo but no cameras were allowed in the
| train station.
| jstanley wrote:
| Why were no cameras allowed in the train station?
| jandrese wrote:
| There are vague federal anti-terrorism statues that disallow
| photography of "critical infrastructure". Mostly used by
| guards to bully anybody they are suspicious of for whatever
| reason. You probably won't be affected by these unless you
| happen to look middle eastern or dark skinned. These laws
| also are also applied inconsistently to bridges, power
| plants, dams, government buildings, and the like.
| schoen wrote:
| I'm not dark-skinned or Middle Eastern, but I was stopped
| and questioned by transit police at Penn Station in New
| York for taking a photo of an OS error message on a train
| status monitor. About 2010 or so?
|
| They seemed to be alarmed by anyone taking an
| unconventional interest in station infrastructure.
| appplication wrote:
| Is it considered terrorism if you fix their BSOD
| tialaramex wrote:
| I'm surprised that happened in Penn Station because I'd
| expect New York has enough nerds that Police are used to
| the fact that yeah, there are infrastructure nerds, and
| they think BSODs are worth photographing, and some of
| them are connected. I guess it depends what "stopped and
| questioned" means. I've had cops stop me and informally
| ask me about stuff and it didn't bother me, whereas if
| they wanna see my ID, search my stuff, now I have a
| problem with it and I want proper paperwork because
| somebody is getting a formal complaint.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| This is India, most people are dark-skinned.
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| Apparently railways are considered military infrastructure at
| time of war.
| albert_e wrote:
| Year 2007, I was visiting US for first time. Found Atlanta
| fascinating. Clicking pictures everywhere.
|
| Waiting for metro (marta?) I took video of a train arriving.
| The conductor? of the train stepped out , said that's not
| allowed, and insisted I delete it immediately.
| duxup wrote:
| I'm guessing post 9/11 mania.
|
| There were a lot of attempted strange policies about
| photography post 9/11 in the US. Some stuck around for
| longer than others. They were all absurd, not like you have
| to take photos to case the joint / before you set off a
| bomb.
|
| At one point Amtrak had a photo contest to take photos of
| their trains and submit them, and a guy was arrested by
| Amtrack police for doing just that.
|
| What is interesting is that after any attack one of the
| first requests is for people who took photos that day to
| turn them in so they can see if there was anything
| important captured.
| nayuki wrote:
| > At one point Amtrak had a photo contest to take photos
| of their trains and submit them, and a guy was arrested
| by Amtrack police for doing just that.
|
| And Stephen Colbert did a great comedy episode about this
| exact problem. https://www.cc.com/video/9kc6le/the-
| colbert-report-nailed-em... ,
| https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/nyregion/28about.html
| don-code wrote:
| That I know of, photography is still prohibited on the MBTA
| in Boston, but you see it all the time.
|
| I think the Overton window has shifted to the point where
| the ability to take a photo is now assumed to be a given,
| and enforcement otherwise would be difficult because
| "everybody's doing it".
| Anechoic wrote:
| The T backtracked on that a while back:
| https://patch.com/massachusetts/northend/yes-you-can-
| take-ph...
|
| (the original MBTA link is long gone)
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| It sounds like you're right, at least from MBTA's
| perspective: [0].
|
| I'm curious if a court has upheld that, though. MBTA is
| at a funny nexus of public and private organization, so
| _personally speaking_ I 'd like to see the First
| Amendment prevail.
|
| [0] https://mbtarealty.com/filming-and-sampling/
| cantSpellSober wrote:
| It's _generally_ legal anywhere in the US you don 't have
| a reasonable expectation of privacy (like publicly
| accessible spaces)
| pastacacioepepe wrote:
| But why?
| albert_e wrote:
| I don't know.
|
| One hypothesis is he didn't like my skin color. Maybe it
| was too soon after 2001.
| fuzzbazz wrote:
| And after the 2004 train bombings in Madrid
| Propelloni wrote:
| A platform conductor once (maybe 15 years ago) explained
| to me that taking photos of the train entering the
| station was forbidden because the flash could distract
| the train operator at the crucial moment where a person
| falls into the trench. There was a sign posted, that's
| why I asked.
|
| Back then I thought this to be a very rare edge-case and
| it seems to be. But since then I personally witnessed
| persons falling into the trench twice. Furthermore I
| learned that railway and train operators take security
| pretty seriously, because anything that could go wrong
| probably kills you.
| jandrese wrote:
| It's interesting how many anti-photography that are
| actually just anti-flash rules, and they're becoming
| close to obsolete. Today's cell phone cameras handle low
| light conditions so well that the flash is hardly ever
| used.
| jameshart wrote:
| Love the contrast with the previous article on the same site:
| https://www.thaitrainguide.com/2022/06/05/day-trip-to-the-ma...
|
| Clearly these 1960s posters were not very effective.
| everybodyknows wrote:
| This was a big improvement over the usual walls of text we were
| seeing back in 2020:
|
| https://www.who.int/images/default-source/wpro/countries/mal...
| [deleted]
| Animats wrote:
| Network Rail in the UK has many rather scary safety videos.
|
| Here's one that's relevant to the SF bay area.[1] It's about the
| dangers of aluminum Mylar helium balloons near overhead wire.
| Those balloons are conductors, and so are their shiny metallized
| ribbons. If one of those things gets close to high voltage
| overhead wire, the holder will be electrocuted. In wet weather,
| ordinary non-metallic strings become conductive. Network Rail has
| deaths this way regularly.
|
| The SF bay area now needs that warning. CALTRAIN electrification
| is close to power-up. That's expected in Q4 2023.[2] This is the
| first time the SF Bay Area has had 25KV overhead wire close to
| ground level. (SF Muni is 600VDC. BART is 1000VDC. Most power
| transmission lines at higher voltages are much higher up than
| railroad power. Caltrain wire is at roughly 5 meters.)
|
| Balloons on long strings are now deadly near the tracks. Tell
| people this.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udaS3NDCkk0
|
| [2]
| https://www.caltrain.com/projects/electrification/constructi...
| ww520 wrote:
| Are the rail safety videos popping up recently in response to
| teens videoing themselves on rails for likes?
|
| https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/teens-electrocuted-600...
| eterm wrote:
| Doesn't compare to Roald Dahl's guide to train safety:
| https://tygertale.com/2014/06/25/final-warning-roald-dahls-g...
|
| The Quenin Blake illustrations of decapitation really hit the
| point home.
| rob74 wrote:
| That's a classic of course, but for me, these exaggerated
| cartoon/comic style depictions are not as disturbing as the
| more realistic Thai posters, because they make you think of
| other classics (Road Runner & Coyote, Tom & Jerry etc.) where
| the protagonists regularly suffer gruesome mutilations, only to
| be perfectly fine again in the next scene...
| jenscow wrote:
| I was just thinking about this. Thanks for digging it out
| freeopinion wrote:
| Anybody who's ever been a youth counselor anywhere in the world
| can sympathize.
|
| "Don't play Frogger with real cars."
|
| "Don't shoot Roman Candles at each other."
|
| "Don't drink laundry detergent."
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| (2022)
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| While UK struggled to make people understand that using the
| Ticket Machine was a piece of cake!
|
| https://www.flickr.com/photos/brajeshwar/19704146340/in/date...
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