Today I travelled up to London to visit ASLEF's HQ, the trade union that represents train drivers.
It was there that I met with Andy Botham, a driver who experienced suicide at work almost two decades ago. Following this incident, he continued to work as a train driver, but also became a Union Representative for ASLEF at East Midlands trains. For Andy, he wants to look further into the impact fatalities have on train drivers. Whilst he understands that we will never stop rail fatalities, he wants to do everything he can to "improve the aftercare and support system for train drivers who have been involved in it".
It was very interesting to hear Andy's perspective on railway fatalities and the impact they have on drivers. Although it has not been proven, he believes that drivers suffer from undiagnosed PTSD after fatalities and this can lead to them being taken out of work due to making mistakes. ASLEF's Executive Committee has given him scope to look into this.
He explained that when some drivers return to work after witnessing a rail fatality, their minds are still fixed on the event and so their concentration suffers - one of the key things a train driver must have. Andy thinks that this could be what leads to them making what the industry calls "operating incidents" such as speeding or missing stations when they had not made these before. These drivers can sometimes be taken out of their job due to their mistakes and not the fatality itself. Currently, the fact that they had witnessed a railway suicide is not taken into consideration, but Andy thinks it should.
He told me that drivers are the highest paid blue collar workers in the UK, if not Europe, but have limited transferable skills. He knows that when a driver loses his job, they would struggle to find another job, of the same salary, with their qualifications. This puts pressure on the drivers who might have a mortgage set up and a family to look after.
Andy therefore wants to "do everything that we can to mitigate the impact fatalities have on train drivers".
This was an aspect that I had never thought of beforehand - it highlighted that there are many ways in which a drivers life can be impacted by suicide, even their job and lifestyle itself.
Above are a few pictures I took during my visit to ASLEF's head office.
Comments