Dangerous train accident held in Spain

Dangerous train accident held in Spain

There have been a number of dramatic accidents lately involving all manner of transportation, including this morning's rush-hour collision of a double-decker bus and a Via Rail train at a crossing in Ottawa that killed several passengers.

Earlier this year, two rail crashes both here in Canada and abroad killed dozens of people. On July 6, there was a catastrophic rail disaster atLac-Megantic, Que. Later that same month, a commuter train derailed in Spain killing 79 people and a bus accident in Italy killed 38 in one of the country's worst road accidents in decades. That same month, a crash landing of an airliner at San Francisco airport killed three.

The dramatic nature of these incidents has raised questions about the general safety of various modes of transit.

It's difficult to get comprehensive safety figures for any given type of transportation, since there are discrepancies from country to country in the way such information is documented. But here is a look at what is known about the safety records of the most ubiquitous means of transportation.