The History of Staged Train Wrecks

For roughly 30 or 40 years, staged train wrecks were a really big deal in the Midwestern and Southwestern parts of the United States. The attraction was related more to the general politics of the day than any specific political issue. There's a complicated set of emotional and psychological responses that feed into the general human trait of morbid curiosity. This is the kind of episode that happens when you're looking for something less heavy to write about and you Google weird fads.