How do people live with themselves when they officially declare a bridge in Minnesota safe and it crashes?

Question

This sort of political irresponsibility happens far too often. What can be done about it? Are we the people helpless?

Answer 1

What if a home inspector examines a home, says it's free of defects, and then an old air conditioner hose that he should have noticed bursts, and floods the condominium apartment with several hundred gallons of water (and mine, and the apartment below me).   And yet the home inspector is not liable.  

Or similarly, when the lady who cuts my hair purchased a house, and again, a home inspector said everything looked solid.  But within two weeks with the first heavy rain, the roof was leaking and cost about 10,000 dollars to replace.  Again, no liability to the home inspector.  

Or when a physician makes an error.  

Or a car mechanic leaves a screwdriver inside the transmission when he replaces it.  

These are all situations that have either happened to me, or people I know.

In the case of material things, it just causes damage, but in the case of medical professionals, it can cause crippling or death as a result of the error.  

Doctors are human beings who make mistakes too.  Though somehow, we expect them to be to flawless and incapable of the errors the rest of us make every day.  

There are systems to safeguard things, but when human beings are involved, errors will happen.   I don't know whether you can blame the government, the private companies, or even the individuals who do the inspection.  Some defects are hard to detect.  

Rather than blame, I think it's better to examine where the inspection system broke down, and revise procedure to see that it isn't overlooked in a similar case the next  time.  

Unfortunately, whether it's the federal government, private companies, or individuals, often there's talk of improvement, but the same mistakes somehow get made over and over again.

Answer 2

"political irresponsibility "? Politicians (thankfully) don't inspect bridges. Bridge inspectors do.

Answer 3

Because people are fallible.  As a result everything designed by or built by humans is also fallible.

Everything in life is a series of trade-offs.  You risk your life (and others) simply by driving your car to work.  However we all make these risk/benefit trade-offs every day.  And for most of our lives - we are correct.

The people who inspected the bridge did the same thing - they inspected the bridge and evaluated the risk.

Answer 4

I think it is too early to make this kind of statement. It looked to me like that bridge was imploded. Didn't you think it was odd that it just happened to all fall down at the same time? Kind of reminded me of when they implode those old casinos in Las Vegas and then just fall to the ground. Think about it.

Answer 5

Is there much that we can do in a world where government contracts are generally given to the low bidder?

Next time you are on a bridge, or driving near a dam, or watching the space shuttle lift off, etc... wonder what got left out of the low bid contract that was contained in the high bid contract. Was it the quality of the Engineer doing the work? Was it the quality of the materials specified for the construction?

Then remember that the government officials who signed off on the low bid contract, also approve contracts for $50 hammers and $100 toilet seats.

Answer 6

God help those families, We have not done any thing for our inferstructure in so long.  People look around you very few things are being renewed.  We are spending billions on a country that has it heads of state gone for 6weeks on vacation.  Who's the fool here?  America is going down the tube in a holey hand basket.

Answer 7

It is a terrible tragedy. I totally agree with Mark A on this one. I pray for the families of the victims and for those who survived. Hopefully awareness has been increased. I am certain there will be lawsuits.

Answer 8

"Government" hires them? We the people are the government. I work for a state government agency full of engineers, geologists, etc. They have trained at the same schools as private sector experts. There are good and bad among us like in any other job. The people you see running for political offices, at least on the state and national levels, don't interview or hire the generic workers who fill our agencies and offices. With a few exceptions, there is nothing political about it. They pick the best applicant like any company would.

Answer 9

Yes the government hires inspectors, and they normally do a d**n fine job of keeping the many thousands of bridges in this country safe.  by the sheer law of averages, a tragedy like this is going to take place.

It's very naive to immediately blame "The Government" for this