National Highways to stop calling collisions 'accidents', as campaigners welcome "significant step" in recognising crashes are "not random events, but preventable incidents caused by human actions"

Not really - use of the word 'accident' implies that an incident was unavoidable. Almost all road crashes are avoidable and are caused by people doing things like going too fast or being under the influence or being distracted or whatever. It's a small but significant step as it will help to force people to take responsibility for their actions.

"Not really - use of the word 'accident' implies that an incident was unavoidable."

At a certain point it will have become unavoidable, as is generally the case with accidents. All accidents are ultimately a consequence of decisions made by human beings. The difference between these and others lies in the nature of those decisions.

A crash caused by excessive speed or DUI or phone use at the wheels is not an accident. Most crashes are caused by failings that could have been avoided. Don't drive too fast, don't drink and drive, don't use your phone at the wheel. 

They're accidents insofar as they are chance events that were not brought about deliberately. Whether something is a failing or not is a subjective moral question or a matter of convention, which doesn't alter the chance nature of an event.

Hmm... splitting hairs here.  The degree of volition is less than "I bought a gun and shot them" but the likely consequences - while having some degree of chance - are entirely foreseeable.  (Unless you can show intellectual deficit in the individual, in which case they shouldn't have a driving licence anyway).

Anyway, stick with crash, you can't go wrong.  That simply sums up what happened.  Going further ("accident") is commentary.

There was actually a criminal case in Germany a few years back in which the judge argued that the defendants' actions were akin to shooting a gun in a busy city centre. (Two young motorists had raced each other through a city centre and driven through a red light at high speed. Another motorist died after being hit by one of them. The defence had argued that the collision had been accidental.)

The quote below appeared on roadcc some time back and I think it sums up accidental quite well.

Quote:

There once was a term in the military called "Accidental discharge," describing the situation where a firearm was discharged inadvertently.
The term was, long ago, replaced with the more accurate term, Negligent discharge." The difference being that once you are in charge of such a deadly instrument, and have been correctly subjected to the rigorous training required and have passed the necessary handling skills tests for it, anything short of the highest standards of application of that training and those skills is considered negligence.
Why is it then that drivers are allowed to have accidents when, by their own claims they have carried out extensive training and passed a nationally sanctioned driving test? Please do not say that cars are less dangerous than guns, they are not. It is the people who use them who are dangerous, and there are a lot more car users in the UK than gun users.
Soldiers, Royal Marines, Sailors and Airmen must carry out periodic retraining and testing of their Skill At Arms abilities whereas drivers get a one shot (pardon the pun) driving test which, for a significant proportion will be the best days driving they ever do, everything from then on is a trail back to mediocrity for some and downright self entitled aggression for the mindless minority.
For those who think the comparison is specious, please bear the following statistics in mind:
1. The muzzle energy of the current 5.56 x 45mm NATO bullet is 1796 Joules.
2. The kinetic energy of a 1.5 tonne car travelling at 62MPH is 1499 Joules.
Not a lot of difference I feel, and the difference is narrowing markedly with the introduction of heavier battery operated vehicles. Rant over!

Pedantry but those numbers in the quote looked odd to me - so I checked *.  The muzzle energy looks right, but:

62mph = 27.7165 m/s

KE = 1/2 . m . v^2

0.5 * 1500 kg * (27.7165 m/s)^2  = 575,000 kg.m^2.s^-2

So more than 320 times higher.  Is it my sums?  Are they giving an estimate of the energy transferred in some way *given* that the car won't stop?  A quick check suggests that in a perfectly elastic collison much more energy would still be transferred to a static pedestrian...

The car has to be going pretty slowly for its KE to match that of the bullet.

(Some comparative "as much energy as / energy transfer [power] " numbers here.)

*I know these are different things - a 5.56 may put a hole through you as it may penetrate around 15-20 inches of soft tissue, although it might fragment in which case it may dump all that energy into you - and where it does so is quite important too.  A car will hit you and you'll probably be thrown somewhere so the car doesn't dump all the energy into you - but on the other hand the car will keep going so could end up on top of you.

"and where it does so is quite important too"

Though not quite as important as you might expect. As the shockwave caused by the bullet passes through you it can cause significant damage some distance from the wound.

I think the status on that is "pending further research":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrostatic_shock

Anyway, it doesn't matter, I was wearing a helmet!  *runs for cover*

alexuk wrote:

Sticks and Stones. Beggars beleif. How about actually doing something to prevent these incidents, rather than wasting time and money on vanity exercises, by focusing on changing the words they publish on X and Facebook. Sometimes the snake is just eating itself.

Doing something generally requires we humans to be able to conceive the something so we can do it. We conceive somethings by use of language.

If a something involving people crushed by a badly driven car is described as "an accident" the something we do about it is to forgive and forget. If we describe the human-crushing events as "a careless and aggresive criminal act"  our doings in response will come to be something very different from forgiving and forgetting, one aspect of which would be prevention of such events in future.

*************

The human world, both metaphysical and physical, is constructed of language and all the associated efflorescense of culture and associated institutions, including the law. How we use language and its meanings vastly affects the doings of culture and law.

What's that last one?

All you have to do is watch a couple of episodes of 'Newswatch' to realise that the BBC never makes mistakes, and never apologises for what most watchers think is bad reporting. The amount of times BBC News responds with 'we reviewd how we produced the bulletin, and we're right!!' is ridiculous.

JLasTSR wrote:

Are they not following everybody else by moving away from saying accident. Should they be following? Shouldn't they be setting the example?

Indeed - it's strange that they've chosen to keep on using the loaded word when I would guess that their interests align with reducing RTCs. Better late than never, I guess.

There's a lot of euphemistic speech and writing practiced in our times, to hide us from various grizzly realities. "Passed away" for died; "accident" for killed or maimed (oneself or others) through carelessness or aggression. That hoary old example, "terminated with extreme prejudice" for killed viciously by a maddened soldier.

Personally I'd rather see plain speech describing the essentials of an event (such as "a named-driver killed a named cyclist by hitting them with a car/van/lorry" rather than "there was a fatal road accident") even if the core statement is also eventually qualified by something like, " ..... as a result of inept/aggresive driving" or "accidently because of unavoidable circumstances".

Such plain terminology doesn't hide the awfulness of a terrible truth; and doesn't trivialise the damage done.

But we moderns prefer to cover up unpalatable facts with sugary prose, especially sugary prose that absolves us of fault or responsibility.

I think we have done it for years enjoyed a cow sandwich recently?

JLasTSR wrote:

I think we have done it for years enjoyed a cow sandwich recently?

That's not why we use the word "beef." The meat wasn't for the Middle English speaking commoners, it was boeuf (or something like that) for the French speaking aristocracy.

Of course it comes from boeuf but we are still using it that is the very point. Just like we use what are essentially archaic terms or essentially euphemisms for things to slightly disassociate them, to make them more palatable to our sensibilities.