I was taken by surprise this morning at the news of the monorail crash at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, and I offer the deepest prayers and sympathy for the family of the victim of this tragedy.

There is no organization with higher safety standards than the Walt Disney World Resort, and while the cause of this horrible accident has yet to be determined, the leadership team at WDW can at least look back and be assured knowing they have continued to make safety the #1 priority.

Some organizations quibble over decisions affecting safety. I’ll give you an example.

Several years ago I was involved with a discussion about the enforcement of the speed limit on our property. The dilemma was about the amount of time we should spend “sitting and waiting” for speeders. Some believed that actively seeking out speeders, pulling them over, and writing a ticket put an unfriendly face on our organization (a popular family vaction destination) and thus the practice should be limited. I disagreed; I felt we needed protect our bikers and pedestrians that shared the roads with vehicles. I remember replying once, sarcastically, “When we have our first fatal bike-vehicle collision, at least we’ll be able to say that we were friendly.”

Our guests dislike our safety policies—lines, capacity limits, keeping fire exit clear… it all sound ridiculous and unnecessary most of the time. But, when tragedy strikes, it becomes clear why we need to keep safety as the #1 priority, all the time. There is nothing worse than looking back and realizing you could have done more.