I don't have much faith that our regulators are going to get their shit together either, but that doesn't mean I can't hold them responsible for the consequences of their negligence. As for the theory that the invisible hand of the market will drive better outcomes in traffic safety, that is obviously not happening in aggregate. It may even be having the opposite effect, given the unchecked proliferation of pickup trucks and large SUVs that are known to be more dangerous to pedestrians and the drivers of other vehicles.
I'm not super familiar with the East Palestine derailment, but based on what I do know about it I think your 59/60 train cars example is sort of disingenuous. American freight rail operators are well known for skimping on safety in multiple dimensions; issues like obsolete brake technology, stretched-thin crews, insufficient maintenance, and excessively long/heavy trains have all been discussed to death before and after that accident. The problem isn't some off-by-one miscalibration, but rather that our regulators (and I'm including lawmakers under that umbrella, especially since they're usually the ones taking the bribes AFAIK) are simply not willing to demand that these industries put public safety over profits in areas where there are well-understood systemic safety problems. AIUI, efforts to improve rail safety during the 2010s and earlier have been largely stillborn, sabotaged by rail company lobbying.
Just to illustrate what I'm talking about via another example: if the MCAS system that killed 346 passengers on two 737 Max aircraft within the span of a few months had been an honest design flaw rather than a hack devised to juice sales by dodging retraining requirements, cheaply and shoddily implemented ignoring the misgivings of Boeing personnel and rubber-stamped by the FAA, then it would have been a simple tragedy. As it actually happened, it's an atrocity—a failure on multiple levels by many people who ought to have known better, holes in the Swiss cheese all lining up, 346 lives sacrificed on the altar of avarice. That's where the invisible hand gets you when you let it take the wheel, but I suppose next you'll tell me that those people ought to have done their own safety audits of the aircraft that got them killed.
Depending on the make and model of a car, you might save money because insurance companies have determined those cars to be safer. If you have a lowjack, your location, your history, there are a lot of factors that go into insurance costs. Insurance companies adjust insurance prices based on risk. Why would you assume private insurance wouldnt also price their policies based on how safe a train is, what the risk is that it crashes, etc.?
Its about who is signing off on whats safe. The government has proven that thry are at best incompetent, they do not have the incentive. A private company has to maintain their reputation through quality of service, they dont have the seemingly endless faith of people because they are "government".
> Why would you assume private insurance wouldnt also price their policies based on how safe a train is, what the risk is that it crashes, etc.?
I don't assume this and I don't think I have even slightly implied that I do. It's obviously, trivially, verifiably false.
Your mistake is in assuming that cost is the primary motivating factor for consumers^[1], and that corporations and their stakeholders won't favor paying higher insurance costs (and fines, etc.) today over paying even more toward safety improvements that won't break even wrt. insurance costs for many years. As I mentioned above, the observable state of the real world explicitly disproves the claim that market forces will drive positive trends in safety outcomes.
^[1] Look how many huge, expensive pickup trucks are on the road in America today. Look at the monthly payments their owners are enduring to satisfy their vanity; look at their spotless paintjobs, empty beds (except perhaps the token equally spotless toolbox), and mud-free fenders.
I'm not super familiar with the East Palestine derailment, but based on what I do know about it I think your 59/60 train cars example is sort of disingenuous. American freight rail operators are well known for skimping on safety in multiple dimensions; issues like obsolete brake technology, stretched-thin crews, insufficient maintenance, and excessively long/heavy trains have all been discussed to death before and after that accident. The problem isn't some off-by-one miscalibration, but rather that our regulators (and I'm including lawmakers under that umbrella, especially since they're usually the ones taking the bribes AFAIK) are simply not willing to demand that these industries put public safety over profits in areas where there are well-understood systemic safety problems. AIUI, efforts to improve rail safety during the 2010s and earlier have been largely stillborn, sabotaged by rail company lobbying.
Just to illustrate what I'm talking about via another example: if the MCAS system that killed 346 passengers on two 737 Max aircraft within the span of a few months had been an honest design flaw rather than a hack devised to juice sales by dodging retraining requirements, cheaply and shoddily implemented ignoring the misgivings of Boeing personnel and rubber-stamped by the FAA, then it would have been a simple tragedy. As it actually happened, it's an atrocity—a failure on multiple levels by many people who ought to have known better, holes in the Swiss cheese all lining up, 346 lives sacrificed on the altar of avarice. That's where the invisible hand gets you when you let it take the wheel, but I suppose next you'll tell me that those people ought to have done their own safety audits of the aircraft that got them killed.