would be thrown at the problems. He hoped he would have retired before this. His prediction was right, but he got the industry wrong. A series of publicised accidents on Britain's railways led to a panic overreaction by the privatised track operator, Railtrack. The company collapsed and public money has flooded the rail system since. As oil from BP's well continues to flood the Gulf of Mexico, I am again reminded of that old conversation. What is the right amount to spend on preventive maintenance as opposed to responding urgently after the event? The water company executive did not think there was an objective answer. It was, he said, a matter of managerial judgment: sometimes you erred too far in one direction, sometimes the other. When the business he worked for was a nationalised industry, the main aim was to do nothing to incur public criticism. In a private company, the imperative was to cut costs a little faster than your competitors. So has BP just been unlucky? Or do the disasters that have occurred in its US business over the past five years -- the Texaco City explosion, the Prudhoe Bay leaks , the Gulf of Mexico oil spill -- result from an emphasis on cutting costs that led to cutting corners? I don't really know -- and nor does the US Congress, or President Barack Obama, or even the company itself. At moments like this, it is not just easy, but obligatory, to say that safety and the