Washington subway crash

[glatt]

I think it's much different in her situation. This is nothing like driving a car and seeing something in the road ahead that you need to avoid.

The train is computer controlled. She is not supposed to take control of the train unless there is an emergency. Her job is to announce the upcoming stations, and close the doors when it's time to pull away from that station. She would get in trouble if she took control and there was no emergency. If she slams on the brakes, she's committing to an action that is going to disrupt the red line during rush hour. She's got these competing directives in her brain. Keep the train going on time. Don't do anything to slow it down and mess up rush hour. Her experience (which was limited by the way - she'd only been a train operator for 6 months) is that the train has always slowed down on its own in the past.

So she needs to make a judgment call about whether it really is an emergency. After a few seconds it was clear to her that it was an emergency, and she hit the panic button.