When they said there were thousands of derailments each year in the U.S. i found a source on the internet that said the total for all derailments in Japan in 2020 was a grand total of 6.
Basically we’re averaging 1,704 derailments a year between 1990 and 2021, and likely very few of them are significant since last year per the article there were 4 deaths.
So, question: what is the legal definition of a derailment and does it differ between here and Japan?
When trains are mainly used for transporting goods, derailment is unlikely to cause deaths. Not the case for Japan, and that's probably half of the explanation for why it's different.
