Lack of Safety Planning Blamed by NTSB in Deadly Midland Parade Wreck

Our Houston accident injury lawyers at Denena Points, PC are always writing about how almost all accidents are preventable with the proper safety precautions. But between equipment defects, complacency, distractions, lack of safety planning, the natural human tendency to rush things, and just plain human error, serious injury accidents continue to happen all the time. You might remember the tragic accident that happened last November in Midland when a freight train slammed into a parade float full of veterans at 62 mph. 4 vets died in the horrific crash and 11 more veterans and their spouses were injured.

The NTSB has just released the results of its yearlong investigation of that tragic accident. The safety agency says that a lack of safety planning by the City and by parade organizers led to the deadly crash. Details seem to indicate an almost complete disregard for safety planning. The parade had been a tradition for 9 years when safety planning went off the rails.

In its early years, our Houston accident injury lawyers notice that the parade organizers had routed the parade in a way that it did not cross the train tracks. Then in later years, they began to route the parade to cross the tracks, but alerted the railroad to their parade plans and posted police officers at the crossing to assure safety.

But last year, when the accident occurred, parade organizers didn’t even bother to obtain the required parade permit. And even if they had, the City of Midland did not require them to submit a safety plan in order to obtain the permit. The NTSB, concerned over this deadly Midland parade wreck and other fatal parade/event accidents in Edmond, Oklahoma, Bangor, Maine, and Damascus, Virginia, has made a series of safety recommendations for cities and counties on the need for parade and special events permits and safety plans. (Joan Lowy, Associated Press, by way of CBS local, 11/5/13)

I happened to look up parade safety regulations for another Texas city (Dallas) in order to get an example of what some cities in our state might require of parade organizers. Our Houston accident injury lawyers emphasize that the Dallas safety requirements are lengthy and specific. Like many major cities, Dallas prohibits candy or other items from being thrown from floats, and it requires a parade command center and plenty of easily identified volunteers all along the parade route for safety. Click the link to learn about Dallas’ parade safety requirements, which seem to closely mirror the requirements of most other large U.S. cities.