When will they ever listen?

 Such a disaster as last week's head-on fatal collision in the Vale of Tempe should never happen on a first-world railway system. On the day after, Greek trade union leaders were quick to point out that they had been warning of the dangers. That reminded me of another March accident waiting to happen, the Ro-Ro ferry in Zeebrugge. The Wikipedia article on the 1987 Herald of Free Enterprise capsize does not go into prior events but I distinctly remember that the relevant unions had warned the operating company about unsafe practices. 

It has later transpired that the Greek authorities were being warned from above as well as below. Euronews reports:

The European Union agency responsible for rail safety warned the Greek authorities on multiple occasions over the past few years, according to the head of the organisation who spoke to Euronews following an accident last week that killed 57 people.

Josef Doppelbauer, the Executive-Director of the EU Railway Agency said that Greece did not react in time to secure its railway system, despite its warning. Even its latest report in 2022 revealed a gloomy picture.

"During the last few years, we have always seen that Greece has ranked amongst the 'bad pupils'," he explained.

"So, with a rather low performance in terms of safety — safety (is) measured in the number of fatal accidents in comparison to the length of the network and the number of passenger kilometres [...]
we have never received any report of an investigation."

We do not need to go far back in history to note similarly unheeded warnings resulting in catastrophe.  From the Twin Towers to Grenfell Tower, destruction and loss of life could have been averted if warnings had been heeded. And, while there are stumbling efforts to remove flammable cladding of tower blocks round the country, the government has not moved to restore the pre-Thatcher fire safety checks on planned multi-storey dwellings.