Thesinkingtitanic

Political Impact 

           The disaster of The Titanic made the American people question how safe they truly were. They began to lose faith in the government and felt as if the country had let them down. But it wasn’t until this devastating tragedy that the government realized how out-of-date its regulations were, and how much they needed improvement. Through a series of many new laws and regulations, the government took preventative measures to ensure no devastation such as this would happen again. And since The Titanic, there hasn’t yet been another catastrophic marine event. 
                 

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In November of 1913, just over a year after the incident, an International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) meeting was held in London. The purpose was to put together a list of safety precautions to be taken so as to keep vessels safe in open waters. Though the sinking of The Titanic took place around North America, the safety of sailors was an important concern for multiple countries. As written in the Denver Post on April 16, 1912, the government was creating laws “…to provide legislation that will enable it in the future to protect the lives of American citizens taking ship to or from this country, no matter where their embarking place may be.” Regardless of where a ship’s destination was, it always was connected to more than one country. A total of seventeen countries, from SOLAS, banned together to form the International Ice Patrol, or the IIP, whose mission was to offer permanent ice patrol in areas of the ocean that seemed most hazardous. This agreement, signed in January of 1914, delegated responsibility for this job to the United States Coast Guard alone, though all of the seventeen countries helped provide for it financially. 

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  A main contributor to the downfall of the craft was the shortage of lifeboats. It was clear that The Titanic did not have enough of them on board, but as people believed the ship to be unsinkable, nobody was concerned over the matter. In fact, The Titanic had removed a layer of lifeboats to make the ship more pleasing to the eye. The top priority was the look of the craft, not the safety of it, as it should have been. But aside from the scarcity of safety boats, as the ship started going down, there was widespread panic. Nobody had a designated place to go, so families were separated as the women and children were shoved into to the small dinghies. However, the American Inquiry Committee recognized these faults and swiftly passed legislation after the fact, to prevent another future incident. Most importantly was the new law that every vessel had to have enough lifeboats to contain all the passengers. Many lives could have been saved if the Titanic had simply had enough safety boats on board. Also, in response to the chaos and panic of the incident, the law stated that every passenger and crew member would be assigned a safety boat, and at least four crew members with boat experience would be assigned to each lifeboat. Along with lifeboat drills to be conducted at least twice a month, any potential disaster’s chaos was greatly diminished as a result of these new regulations. 
          When a ship is out to sea, wireless communication is essential. Although The Titanic had the most up-to-date wireless equipment, it was still old-fashioned in comparison to the rest of the world. Many confusing signals were sent from The Titanic as it was sinking, one so confusing as to start a rumor that the ship was, in fact, not sinking. As printed in the New York Herald on Tuesday, April 16, 1912, “Some of the London newspapers went to press this morning under the belief that all aboard the titanic were safe and that the vessel was proceeding for Halifax.” This situation gave the United States a wake-up call, letting them know that modern technology was essential to stay correctly informed, and to maintain the safety of its people. At a SOLAS meeting in 1948, the use of the wireless was made mandatory, as it allowed not only communication, but also gave weather reports and the location of the vessel. It was also important that positions of ice fields were recorded and monitored, and this could have helped prevent the disaster as well. With these new laws on wireless communication technology, the chances of another catastrophe are reduced significantly.