roachboy,
I believe your characterization sentence is a bit different than the contents of the article you supplied. From your article:
Quote:
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BP says the Deepwater Horizon did have a "dead man" switch, which should have automatically closed the valve on the seabed in the event of a loss of power or communication from the rig. BP said it can't explain why it didn't shut off the well.
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There are multiple systems in place, including an automatic shutoff valve. The one that they didn't install was a remote control shutoff valve, a third sort of safety device. So automatic ones were required and an automatic one was in place. Regardless, your contribution does call in to question how much safety is required on something so important? Double redundancy, triple? Whatever they had clearly was not enough.
Let's put it this way. This was a predictable event (the oil reaching the shore) with a reasonable amount of time to react. All measures being used right now to prevent oil from reaching the shore could have been started 5 or 6 days before they did. So, the real question is whether political criticism is justified?