Laws of Man, Laws of Nature. Train wreck in Spain.

We call rules and regulations laws. We call absolute limits laws. We confuse the two, and we shouldn't.

A law of man is the speed limit on a highway. You can probably exceed it, and get away with it. If you get caught, no big deal, a little fine and you're on your way. Corners have limits too and those are usually lower. The corners are obviously harder, but again you can exceed it a little and probably get away with it.

There are other laws. The laws of nature. These laws are impossible to violate. These are the laws that say you entered the corner too fast, and your car slid off the corner out of control. Those are the laws that govern friction and grip of your tires.

I mention this because of the accident in Spain that has claimed 77 lives so far. http://news.sky.com/story/1120288/spain-train-crash-footage-of-disaster-emerges

I can't post the video here, and I'm not sure I would if I could. The crash is horrific. The speed limit for that corner was about 50 miles an hour. The train was traveling at 120 MPH, more than double the limit for that corner.

Whenever I see something like this I shake my head. I know what happened. Someone confused the laws of man, and the laws of nature. Man's laws you can violate and get away with it unless or until you are caught. Natures laws you can't. Centrifugal force on that train in that corner at that speed must have been enormous. Well exceeding the design capacity of the train and the track. What happened is that the driver of the train went faster than fifty through that corner before, and got away with it. The design limit wasn't 51, it was probably half again or even double that high. The Engineer was probably careful, putting a limit on the section that was well below the actual physical limit.

Then the train came around again. This time it was well above the limit, this time it was well past any hope of pulling the dangerous maneuver off. This time the cost was 77 dead and more than 130 injured.

You can break the laws of man because those aren't laws, they are regulations, rules. The word law should be saved for things that you can not break. The law of gravity. Newton's laws of motion. The laws of thermodynamics. Laws in physics, things you can't break because you don't get a wrist slapped on the other side, you get death and serious injury.

So for those of you who are going to read this. Understand that there are differences between the laws of man and the laws of nature. You can't break the second one and expect everything to be OK at the other side.