Following on from what JediMoose says about blame culture, I was a little concerned recently about the corporate conviction of Network Rail for the Hatfield disaster. It’s good in many ways that someone is being held responsible for these crashes when something is obviously at fault, but I worry what the effect will be when an enormous fine is slapped onto Network Rail (not Railtrack, which no longer exists). Either less money will be available to run the railways, or the public will pay through higher fares or increased government subsidy.
I have a similar worry about hospital cases where hospitals are penalised financially, which can only further reduce the effectiveness of the hospital, thus making corner-cutting and bad practice more likely.
I must say, however, that I have never been in a position where I or a loved one has been hurt in either of these ways. Given the choice though, I would prefer criminal conviction of individual negligence, which should be legally provable, rather than suing and draining a public organisation of its money, which came from the public in the first place anyway.
There’s a similar rant that could be made about trade unions and strikes, which mostly seem to occur in public organisations (fire fighters, teachers, university staff) so don’t hurt managers or shareholders like strikes are meant to, but members of the public, children, and students. Probably best to stop there.