Let me start by saying that I'm asking this for a School Assignment. To create a question, and get answers.

Accidents happen, and when they happen in the transportation industry human safety is often a factor. After the recent sinking of the Queen of the North ferry, investigators are announcing a $500,000 mission to retrieve information from computers on the bridge. This mission is not guranteed, nor is it easy. Given the situation does this really warrant the price tag?
More Information: http://www.cbc.ca/bc/story/bc_ferry-dive20060421.html

Could you also post so I can get a screen name for my assignment,
Thanks

I think it is worth the pricetag if not even more. Ferries carry a lot of people and it is important to prevent any futher accidents which the computer data could help to do. Also, ferries themselves cost a lot of money to construct. In my opinion $500,000 is a small price to pay to potentially save hundreds of lives and protect a multi-million dollar investment.

I think it is, but the majority of that cost will be taken up by high-charging equipment and software companies who will provide the tools and underwater robots etc. Not by the actual investigators managing the retrived data.

It is worth it.

Think of it this way.. would you want to be on the next one that sank, because the people responsible wouldn't put money towards making it safe( r)?

This post has been edited by xaetos: Apr 24 2006, 02:07 AM

The price is mainly to pay for equip and for a reasonable wage on man power. Of course the price is needed, unless your gonna give a reward to some freelance corp.

While I am very conserned with the safety of our race, I feel that spending 500,000 dollars on what I am gathering to be as an accident. is just outrageous. Since from what it sounds like seems like an accident I do not see the need to spend money on it. I mean really, what if the guy had fallen asleep, or that he was under the influence of something when he was attempting to opereate the farry, or he was sleepy. How is spending that amount of money going to stop a man from being tired. I also know that a man that is under the influence is more prone to causing an accident. I am not saying that the person that was operating was in some kind of physical unstability, but spending that much money is not going to do anything in my opinion. I have not heard of any real shure fire way to sit there and and stop accidents. I feel that the money should be directed in some other beneficial way. Maybe it can be used to help the people that are alive instead of trying to find out what caused this accident. I mean know why something happened didn't stop it from happening. Sure it can help some in the future but their is still going to be the acastional slip-up.

Also one more thing that should be added is the fact that they are not guarenteed to recover the information that they are wanting. I mean it is great if they do. But if you do not then you just wasted alot of money that could have been directed into something that was better. Also with that if they fail then their is the chance they may try to do it again so they could end up wasting even more money.

This post has been edited by Señor Maniac: Apr 24 2006, 02:40 AM

The $500,000 price tag is to recover equip which was on the Farry. While all of the factors you listed off may have been true, the price tag is just to find out whether or not, so that way a conviction can be made in order to right this. If the captain is at fault, he should be fined or jailed. And the equip to recover the equip aint cheap.