it seems kind of ridiculous to blow it off. Are there personal liability issues for her where if she said something she could open herself up to lawsuits?? I'm not drawing a conclusion, just looking for more information.

According to the article this was the second time she had a major safety violation, the first missing a stop. This one was much much more serious. The CTA says fatigue was not a factor, but she had been working 55 hours.

I can understand why she did not show up for the hearing. After all, what was she going to say?

I have seen people fired for much less serious safety violations, and I had little sympathy for them. She was very lucky no one was killed, or else she would be facing manslaughter charges.

that were affecting sleep patterns as a result.

In the winter I work an erratic schedule with no dependability as to which hours I will work and when.

It takes a toll on you.

I would mostly work graveyard, but occasionally I'd work days. I personally rather put myself in a graveyard then do that again.

Yeah, I used to work irregular shifts too. It is rough.

The majority of my workload involves driving during the irregularity of my hours in the winter (I drive a truck; non-union for snow removal contractor.)

I've refused on more than a handful of occasions to continue past my limits to my employer in the face of potential repercussions due to becoming a liability rather than an asset to the company.

Thankfully my employer understands this.

What I do not get is that MTA workers are union employees, why wouldn't they voice this concern when it presented itself rather than force themselves into a potentially dangerous situation?

Don't want the boss to think you're lazy.

The chances of her getting her job back are slim to none. At the same time she was going to lose her job anyway, wouldn't she have nothing to lose by showing up and at least telling her side?

Why was she tired? Did she party? Was her sleep so irregular because of works shifts? Did she get the proper breaks? Was she drinking prior to her shift?

Is she 100% to blame or is the CTA to blame at all?

There was nothing wrong with the equipment, and she drove a train up the escalator

according to the CTA.

Also according to NBC Chicago, she has a list of prior arrests for domestic battery and reckless conduct.

Not really sure I would want someone with her decision making skills to be driving a train.

"There was nothing about that operator's work schedule that suggests fatigue should have played a role in her performance," spokesman Brian Steele said.

The agency said the operator worked 55 hours in the seven days preceding the incident and was off for 18 hours before the shift during which the wreck occurred.

On the other hand, they're tightening up their scheduling rules:

"An attorney for a law firm that has sued the CTA said changing work rules for safety reasons was a welcome action but overdue....

...The CTA changes include setting a maximum of 12 hours of actual train operations duty, including layover times at terminals and other nondriving rail duties, during a 14-hour period. Currently there is no maximum."

The fact is that working night shift and working a "chaotic schedule" (which is what the union claimed she had been working) fucks with your sleep cycles and circadian rhythms. Lose enough sleep, and you can go into "sleep deprivation psychosis" and can damage your brain.

CTA claims that she'd had to do manual things in the minutes prior to the accident. The fact is if you're sufficiently sleep deprived, you can doze off incredibly quickly.

This is what happens when hours are determined not in the name of what is possible and reasonable, but in the name of what is cheapest, no matter the cost to others. No surprise that they automatically blame the operator, even while they change how they do scheduling.

I've had to 13 hour night shifts intermingled with day shifts. It takes more than 24 hours for my body to recover from the fatigue. I just had to do an 8 hour split night, followed by a day off, followed by my normal shift. My day off was half sound asleep, half groggy while I stumbled through minimum chores. I slept through the next night, was groggy and ill feeling the next day. thank dog my dogs are forgiving.

For the vast majority of people, it just doesn't work. Even on a regular schedule a lot of people simply can't do nights. We just lost a 40ish night shift person. She worked 2 night shifts and 1 day/week. after 2 years, she just couldn't do it any more.

she drove a train up an escalator. AND she didn't show up for her hearing.

either that or she was quitting. Either way, why go there and be told how terrible you are.

Just last week I asked a long-term lab tech, who has for the first time had to do a split night shift, and discussing the 13 hour overnight shift, if somebody has to get killed before they fix something.

Her response was yes. The year before I came to that lab, a courier was killed trying to make the delivery schedule between hospitals during an ice storm.

At least nobody here had to die for CTA to start looking at a more reasonable work schedule.

A few years back, when I was finishing med lab tech school, we heard about a nurse well to our north who made a mistake during an emergency, and gave 2 different people each other's donor blood for transfusion. This was her last work shift before leaving on vacation for Haiti to work with Doctors without Borders. Not only did she not show up for the hearing regarding the death of the 2 patients, she didn't return to the US. Her career here was over, whereas she could simply stay in Haiti or go wherever.

hearsay or actual, shows a lack of a sense of responsibility. "Oh, I'm just going to get fired anyway so why go to the hearing? Don't want to get my feelings hurt because I caused hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage, or two people died."

Perhaps in both cases, the person was clearly negligent and lacked the character to own up. I mean wouldn't you fight a firing if you felt you were overworked. Or would you just skip out on your hearing because you could get a job where they don't care about that kind of thing?

I wouldn't fight a firing if I felt I was overworked. I wouldn't fight a firing if I had fucked up big time. And I would go to the hearing if I felt my being overworked contributed to my fuck up.

However, we aren't talking about me. We are speculating about a person we know nothing about, other than that she is female and 25 years old.

We don't know if she was on drugs and doesn't give a fuck or if she's hiding her head in shame or has some physical illness that has overwhelmed her.

It's just speculation. I do know, however, that a schedule that disrupts your circadian rhythms can lead to severe health issues, including (temporary) sleep deprivation psychosis. And we do know that she was working a "chaotic" schedule of 55 hours in 5 1/2 or so days, followed by 18 hours off. And it's also well known that it takes 2-3 days to recover from each hour of change to sleep cycles.

I think it's pretty disingenuous for CTA to claim there was no basis for exhaustion, even while they are responding by tightening up regulations around scheduling.

She'd get a multimillion dollar bonus.