It feels like I’m always writing the same thing but : Cost of doing business.

Corporations cut corners because the fines they're issued by the government don't go far enough.

But in the example for the shipping company the example is that the company used a minimum amount of crew. Using a minimum amount of crew isn't something they'd get fined for.

If the regulation wasn't enough or if tugs should've been used then it's strange to claim that the fine isn't high enough. As the regulations were followed.

We've already seen reports that laws on the books for disasters like the Titanic to limit liability of the corporations...

They spend all their profits on lobbying lawmakers to always cut them a break.

Because corporate personhood is different than person personhood?

I always find it interesting to take corporate fines, translate them to a % of gross income and then apply it to my salary to put it in perspective.

Here’s the best part, a basic 1st offense traffic ticket is usually way more expensive. (I assume a ticket would be around $250 not counting the increased insurance rates.)

It gets a little weird with the web of ownership, use case, contract details and people involved.

Ok it can get really weird… hear me out.

Basically in most cases the vessel owner is only liable up to value of the vessel itself. It’s something that like much of the maritime industry came about from practices in the 19th century and vessel ownership back then. Unfortunately, the vessel is likely worth no where near as much as taking out a fucking bridge. Also in any given scenario a vessel could be owned by the captain, owned by a corp, leased by a corp to a captain, leased by a corp to another corp etc. weird ownership scenarios like those are commonplace in shipping.

In certain circumstances a company can be on the hook but the other big wrinkle is determining who is liable in the first place like the vessel crew, or port crew (but for instance if someone from on shore is working on the vessel at the time they are considered acting crewmembers). This is compounded with the whole mechanical error issue and how supposedly the vessel was having maintenance work done before hand, but then lost power twice? Insurance inspectors are going bonkers at this point.

Point is this is a way wackier scenario to deal with compared to your average fender bender. But in a way kinda has to be, not because of lobbying or corporate malfeasance but because of the complex nature of maritime law, shipping, and insurance.

Lobbyists.

They will be. Although, much like with car collisions, it'll be insurance that's on the hook.

In the early 2000's I was working at a saw mill in northwestern Ontario that was a 200 km (120 mile) round trip from home, on a 2 lane highway that zig-zagged through the Canadian shield. There were often lakes on one side and steep ravines on the other, and we often had to dodge moose in the winter (who were kneeling in the middle of the highway licking salt off the road).

One of my crew taught me a valuable lesson then ... that the minute you put the vehicle into drive you also unlock your electric doors, so that if you do end up in the water there is a chance you can get out of the vehicle.

I still do it to this day.

50 is an interesting number, considereding it's only about 35 feet deep under the bridge. I wonder if they were swept down stream a significant way

Ironic when they're trying to talk about Corporations Cutting Corners, eh?

Yeah, I noticed the same thing. Lots of paragraphs that start with "[person/thing] is [context/role]". I wonder whether it's actually human written, but they poorly integrated too many individual perspectives into the article. Building a narrative from fragments in this way takes a lot of skill to pull off, perhaps they were too ambitious (or too cautious — I've seen this pitfall when the writer is too tentative in making their own argument on a spicy topic)

The Market is real. An invisible hand guiding it is a belief.