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news
Richmond Park crash (via Twitter Royal Parks Police)“We try to use language that ordinary people use”: BBC defends use of “accident” to describe road traffic collisions
The BBC has defended its use of the term “accident” when describing road traffic collisions, with the broadcaster telling one listener that “we try to use language that ordinary people use, not the language contained in reports and documents”.
Radio 4 listener Toby Edwards complained to the BBC after an 11am news bulletin on 28 September announced that “figures show that 39 people died after road accidents involving the police between 2021 and 2022”.
Edwards asked the BBC’s Complaints Team if the broadcaster was “sure that all of these collisions were indeed accidents”, or whether “the term ‘accident’ was used mistakenly instead of saying ‘crashes’ or ‘collisions’?”
As Edwards noted in his letter to the BBC, the Media Guidelines for Reporting Road Collisions – coordinated by journalist and road.cc contributor Laura Laker alongside the Active Travel Academy at the University of Westminster, and launched in May 2021 – advises reporters to:
Avoid use of the word ‘accident’ until the facts of a collision are known. Most collisions are predictable and before an enquiry or court case the full facts are unlikely to be known. It is particularly important to avoid the word when someone has been charged with driving offences. Using ‘crash’ or ‘collision’ instead leaves the question of who or what is to blame open, pending further details.
At the time of the guidelines’ launch, Professor Rachel Aldred, the director of the Active Travel Academy, noted that “language matters, as it helps shape how we see and treat others”.
> “Language matters” – Road collision reporting guidelines launched
In a reply to Edward’s letter, received by the Radio 4 listener on 4 November, the BBC’s Complaints Team said: “We note your concerns about our use of the world ‘accident’ in the news report. We were referencing data released by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IPOC) that said: ’39 people died after road incidents involving the police between 2021 and 2022’.”
The response continued: “We’ve discussed your concerns with senior staff in BBC News and, although we take your point that ‘collision’ may have been a preferable word, our job is to write radio scripts that are relatable and understandable, and we try to use language that ordinary people use, not the language contained in reports and documents.
“‘Traffic accident’ is common parlance and we don’t feel here its use materially altered the accuracy of the story. The Road Collision Reporting Guidelines are guidelines, not rules.”
This response from the BBC complaints department justifying their use of the word “accident” instead of “collision” is appalling and irresponsible. @RoadPeace @allpartycycling pic.twitter.com/DSUWsTwrHy
— Töby Édwãrds (@IsSaddleThereIs) November 4, 2022
Sharing the response on Twitter, Edwards described the BBC’s attempt to ‘justify’ the use of the word ‘accident’ as “appalling and irresponsible”.
Criticising the broadcaster’s “very late response”, Edwards told road.cc: “Why aren’t they following the guidelines? If the BBC can’t do it, then it’s hopeless. It’s inaccurate to call all crashes ‘accidents’.”
DCS Andy Cox, head of crime at Lincolnshire Police and national lead for fatal collision investigations, also criticised the BBC’s response on Twitter, writing: “‘Accident’ implies it was unavoidable, just one of those things, bad luck. Instead, many fatal ‘crashes’ occur because a driver made a choice to be dangerous or reckless, and to selfishly break the law.
“Words matter, and can help change an embedded mindset and save lives.”
Another Twitter user pointed out that, the day after Edwards complained about the Radio 4 news bulletin, the Department for Transport agreed, following a consultation, to change the terminology used in its publications and data to refer to collisions, rather than accidents.
“If the DfT can change, why can’t you BBC? You should be taking the lead on following the guidelines, not refusing to report responsibly,” the user tweeted.
> BBC corrects Nick Robinson’s comment that “you cannot use your car” in a low traffic neighbourhood
Radio 4’s decision to ignore the Road Collision Reporting Guidelines isn’t the first time that the station has been criticised for its use of language by cycling campaigners.
In April 2021, the BBC issued a correction after Radio 4 Today programme host Nick Robinson inaccurately claimed that “you cannot use your car” in Low Traffic Neighbourhoods.
Robinson’s comment received a number of complaints, including one from the Labour MP Lilian Greenwood, who is an officer of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Cycling and Walking.
Greenwood, the MP for Nottingham South, wrote to the BBC’s director of editorial policy and standards David Jordan to flag the presenter’s comment as a “falsehood,” adding, “the least we can expect from a national broadcaster is a basic grasp of the facts.”
> ‘Road Rage: Cars v Bikes’: BBC’s Panorama episode receives mixed reception
This week’s latest backlash comes hot on the heels of the mixed reception within the cycling community afforded to the broadcaster’s recent Panorama programme ‘Road Rage: Cars v Bikes’.
Some cycling campaigners, including the Guardian’s Peter Walker and road.cc’s Simon MacMichael, concluded that the investigation was “good in parts” and effectively highlighted the vulnerability of people on bikes and the dangers posed by motorists.
However, the programme was heavily criticised for its use of questionable statistics – the ‘finding’ that a third of drivers believe that cyclists shouldn’t be on the road (a claim that garnered several tabloid headlines) was based on an open-ended online poll – and the presence of divisive interviewees such as Rod Liddle (a controversial voice that was later repeated in subsequent BBC news bulletins on the subject this week).
With the BBC’s use of language under scrutiny, Walker also questioned the divisive nature of the programme’s title. “There’s this weird compulsion to make everything about cycling into a battle. As others have said, it’s less a battle than a massacre,” the journalist tweeted.
Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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55 comments
BBC Complaints are incapable of saying 'there is merit in your complaint, and we realise we could have phrased this better.'
They exist to fob people off with "I'm sorry you feel that..."
They are the "creatives" of the BBC. I put in about a dozen complaints over the space of a year. Initially there was something Brexity IIRC, but then I realised the system was broken so I put in a few test complaints, including a headline so mangled it made a libelous comment suggesting the subject did the opposite of what they had done. They couldn't bring themselves to admit that there was a problem with misleading headlines, nor would they admit it was simply poor editing (the headline gets truncated differently on different platforms) and rested instead on the reader being able to correct their mis-impression by reading the article.
I did a follow-up pointing out some research that showed that a substantial proportion of readers don't read articles any more, and I suggested that they must have their own internal stats to confirm that. Never got a proper response and, as intended, I lost the will to defeat the highly skilled troops defending the Beeb..
What hope is there for an organisation that re-hired Martin Bashir.
So-called "ordinary people" used to use a lot of words to describe people, activities, and events that the BBC wouldn't dreams of allowing to be broadcast today. But then what do you expect from an organisation that has such enormous institutional blind spots that it insists its coverage of the monarchy is "fair and duly impartial" immediately after a three-week period of non-stop hagiography.
Wow! Was that only three weeks? Surely it was a year at least.
You've framed what I was trying to say perfectly. Just following the conventions of speech set by the majority does nought all, especially if these conventions are problematic, confusing or out of touch.
Isn't it sort of the point, that "ordinary" people regard road traffic collisions as accidents with all the conotation of it being outside of anyone's control or responsibility. That is exactly the attitude which needs to be confronted at every level, including the fundamental language being used.
Exactly: many people see deaths or collisions as just one of those things, like the weather. Consider how local news often only refers to road traffic collisions by how long the road will be closed for, or how much delay it will cause. Just one of those things, like high winds or a rainstorm.
Everytime that I hear a "road closed for police investigation" on a traffic report I know that's a death or a very, very serious life changing injury.
And the BBC pertains to not show bias but seem to do this on a regular basis, I really think this needs addressing.
As I know blame shifting and minimising when I see it.
BREAKING NEWS
News organisation adds their own spin to the facts to support owner/bill payer/advertisers/industry lobby/political pressure/personal bias*
*delete as appropriate.
The reason that "accidents" is in common usage is due to the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce's successful campaigns in the 1920s that heavily influenced the mainstream media. They provided a journalistic service to write copy for newspapers that deliberately pushed the agenda that RTCs just happen accidentally and is one of those things we have to accept
.https://portside.org/2015-01-21/forgotten-history-how-automakers-invented-crime-jaywalking
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26073797
The BBC is yet again following its motor agenda and using loaded words instead of more accurate, neutral words. Strangely, they don't use the same language that is in common use to describe our current government and instead choose to use the un-loaded words.
Wow! Thank you. Not something I was aware of.
I think the term 'accident' is not generally used by the police and the DfT even states on their 2021 annual report:
"Alongside this publication we have implemented a number of changes, including to terminology (referring to collisions rather than accidents) and to the accompanying data tables."
I don't recall the MSM using the word 'accident' when Charlie Alliston collided with Kim Briggs.
It is all part of the out-grouping of people on bicycles. We have columnists ranting about cyclists on the pavement and even the police victim-blaming pedestrians and cyclists for not being plastered in hi viz garb, even in daylight. Meanwhile in reports seemingly driverless cars collide with various inanimate objects and no-one is held responsible.
I can actually understand the avoidance of the words crash or collision in this context, because some of the deceased could have died without actually coming into contact with a police vehicle, e.g., crashed whilst trying to escape from one, and crash/collision does seem to imply contact between vehicles or a vehicle and a person. However, the correct word is right there in the report that the response quotes, "incidents". It would be interesting to ask the BBC whether they genuinely believe that the R4 news audience is of such limited vocabulary/mental acuity that they would be unable to understand what was meant by "incident", to the extent that it had to be replaced with "language that ordinary people use".
I don't think that 'crash' or 'collision' implies anything in particular. You can drive and crash into a wall or collide with a tree, whereas using language such as 'accidentally hit a tree' implies that the driver wasn't at fault.
My point was that in this specific context "died after a crash/collision involving a police car" implies that the police car came in contact with the person/vehicle involved, which may not always have been the case. "Died after an incident involving a police car" covers all bases without giving the no-fault implications that "accident" does.
I'm puzzled as to what incident involving a police car would lead to someone's death without involving a collision.
For example, a police car is chasing a motorcycle at high speed, motorcyclist loses control and goes down on a bend, smashes his head and dies. That's (in the words of the IOPC report to which the BBC were referring) a "road incident(s) involving the police" in which there's no collision at all, let alone one involving the police vehicle.
Well that sounds like his head collided with the road, but I get what you mean. Maybe a "loss of control incident" would be clearer so that it doesn't sound like the police were directly involved.
The issue is that the police might be deemed directly involved (though not necessarily blamed) if a person seeking to evade the police in a chase exceeds their talent and dies as a result even without any hint of contact or even being close.
Indeed and when the police chase after suspects I'd expect them to consider the chances of the situation escalating due to the pursuit.
I wonder why the home of petrolhead productions would be against using the correct terminology for incidents involving cars? They've long demonstrated their contempt for Active Travel, with almost no coverage, and their helmet propaganda campaign. Their complaints process exists solely to exonerate their employees.
The BBC is not just some social media opinion platform. It is the Public Service Broadcaster with supposed journalistic principles and deserving of our trust.
So Best Practice and an intent to educate is a reasonable expectation from license payers. That best practice is to refer accurately to collisions caused by people not to accidents that imply nobody is responsible.
In a genuine safety culture (Aviation) there is only equipment failure or pilot error. There is no avoiding responsibility. There is only accurate reporting after proper investigation by skilled professionals. So the high risk act of flying has been made equivalent to taking the bus. Safer than the bus statistically. That is what a credible safety culture can achieve.
Why is that not our expectation of road transport?
#VisionZero
There are a few other modes - such as procedure errors (where the correct procedure was followed but it caused the wrong action, which I suppose is a human error earlier), and non-pilot human errors. But by and large, you're right, and the real point is this: most of the really dangerous stuff happens because of human errors, and road safety would be transformed if we took the same approach to investigation and subsequent action as the aviation industry.
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