It says alot about our civility here. Coast Guard regulations, qualified employee's, inspections, etc. etc.
DOT rules and regulations, etc.
Some folks beef about laws and regulations, etc., but really, isn't that was seperates us ( and other civilized nations ) from incidents like you mention.
When we do get an "incident", like the person trampled to death at a wall-mart last Christmas season, it makes the news big time, but how about dozens of folks trampled to death at soccer riots, etc. in other countries. Just a few weeks ago it seems that in one of the Muslem countries, at some sort of Muslem holiday get-together, dozens were sampeded to death by the crowd, because of some "rumor" causing mass panic.
All-in-all, we have it pretty good here, I think.
Mark