(This Letter to the Editor was published in the May 2, 2002 issue of the Miami Herald.)

In 1997 I was impressed that your editorial page told the public that the involvement of courts and legislatures are vital for consumers to force railroads to be safe (Tracking rail safety, Oct. 25, 1997). Since then, changes have made it worse for consumers, although it has been a financial boon for the rail owners. The Legislature, having received large campaign contributions from big business, passed a new law that made it cheaper for corporations such as CSX Transportation to continue lethal behavior by blocking victims from forcing improvements through the courts.

Now the same behavior has cost four more people their lives. Gov. Jeb Bush signed into law, earlier than required, Florida Statute 768.73 subsection 2, which says that if a party is held liable in any court for punitive damages, then that party can't be sued again for punitive damages in Florida, so long as the injury or death was caused by the ``same course of conduct.''

In other words, if a corporation does the same thing that it got punished for before, the Legislature and our governor believe it shouldn't get punished again, even if it causes death. That law helped make it easier and cheaper for CSX, which owns and maintains railroad tracks, to continue the behavior that killed my husband and seven others in 1991. Now four more innocent people have died, and 150 were injured. Railroad tracks don't ''kink'' several inches in eight hours. Yet CSX claims it inspected that section of track just eight hours before the recent derailment in Crescent City.

By signing off on inspections it didn't actually do, the railroad saves billions of dollars in maintenance costs. We proved all that in court, and a jury punished CSX for lying about maintaining tracks and placing profits above human life.

Thanks to our lawmakers, even if it's proven that CSX continued these dangerous policies, the new victims and their families will find it nearly impossible to get justice in a Florida court. Our public officials traded away our only mechanism for forcing improvements from soulless corporations. I wonder how they sleep at night. Do they cry themselves to sleep as we victims do?

Anyone who thinks this doesn't affect them, think again. Last May there was a derailment of a train carrying hazardous materials into Miami. Then the materials were off-loaded safely. What about the next time?

Angelica Palank
Cooper City, Fla.