The Null Device

Commuting is a health hazard

An official investigation in Britain claims that commuting on trains is a health hazard, with the cumulative consequences of the stress of riding in overcrowded, unreliable trains resulting in high blood pressure, chronic anxiety and even fatal heart conditions for countless passengers. Britain's privatised trains are chronically overcrowded because it's cheaper for operators to pay overcrowding fines than to run longer trains.

Cary Cooper, professor of psychology and health at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, said: 'People develop a constant internal anger on crowded trains that they cannot easily displace.

'Then they hear that the train has stopped for 20 minutes for no apparent reason. If travel was cheap at least people could rationalise it.'

(Similar things could apply in Melbourne; especially with the new trams and trains which have fewer seats as to accommodate more standing passengers. Only here it's easier to drive everywhere, so everybody who can, does.)

There are no comments yet on "Commuting is a health hazard"