It is disturbing how often major disasters in this country bring to light the lack of common sense safety regulations for the industries involved. Though it has been months since the Norfolk Southern train derailment outside East Palestine, Ohio, federal regulators are still trying to use the incident to improve rail safety.

Among the latest ideas is a rule proposed Wednesday that would require all railroads to immediately send the details of everything aboard their trains to every emergency responder within 10 miles, as soon as the railroad becomes aware of an accident.

It begs the question, why wasn’t that already happening?

The system in place to this point has involved an app — AskRail — used by the largest freight railroads that allows firefighters to look up the details of what each train carries; and printed copies of cargo kept by crews in the cabs of their locomotives. Only the six largest rail companies use AskRail. This new rule would apply to more than 600 rail companies, and would require them all to proactively send out this information to all nearby emergency services, using electronic push alerts, anytime there is a derailment or hazardous chemical release, instead of expecting arriving firefighters to look up the details on an app.

“On-demand access to key information about hazmat shipments coupled with proactive information sharing with those closest to the problem will enable first responders to better prepare for the risks present at the scene of an incident before they arrive on scene,” said Tristan Brown, deputy administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

Such a rule will keep first responders safer and allow them to better do their jobs, which will in turn keep our communities safer.

So would required registries of what is stored in our region’s many warehouses. But that is a matter for a different agency.

For now, officials should waste no time approving and implementing this new rule.