When is a car accident really an "accident"?

Is there a better term for some cases?

On Apr 29, 4:33*am, wrote:
> Is there a better term for some cases?

Ummm...one caused by a mechanical failure? Flat tire? But even those
could be
caused by poor maintenance.

Harry K

On 4/29/2013 6:33 AM, wrote:
> Is there a better term for some cases?
>
Suicide.

The is a well known spot in SW Wisconsin, chosen for obvious reasons.

<https://maps.google.com/maps?q=lone+rock,+wi&ll=43.163558,-90.194503&spn=0.001949,0.005284&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&hnear=Lone+Rock,+Richland,+Wisconsin&gl=us&t=h&z =18&layer=c&cbll=43.163698,-90.194276&panoid=1_31oCSQNTmzdhdCIulzLg&cbp=12,196 .16,,0,4.32>

--
T0m $herm@n

On Mon, 29 Apr 2013 04:33:23 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

>Is there a better term for some cases?

The politically correct term these days is to call them "crashes". To
me any crash that you didn't intend to have is an accident. But the
PC crowd wants to make sure anyone who has an accident is suitably
beaten around the head for their poor driving and withholds the term
accident as if that somehow makes it willful. To the PC safety crowd
ALL crashes are preventable and no human should ever be let off the
hook for any failing (unless they are poor of course, then "we" are
all to blame for not paying to send them to drivers school). So if
you have a blow out and "crash" it's YOUR fault for driving on tires
that you*could* have replaced even if they are not technically worn
out.

I'm referring to instances where.....

...Waiting one extra second after the light turned green prevented you from being T-boned by a red-light runner.

....Slowing down just a couple mph allowed you to negotiate that icey hair-pin turn exit off the parkway instead of skidding down a steep embankment and crashing and bursting into flames.

....Pulling into a parking lot to take that cellphone call instead of completing it on the road, so you didn't drift into the opposite traffic lanes - into the path an oncoming bus.

....Waiting at a 4-way stop sign when it really was your turn, saved you from being followed by an angry roadrager to your house.

I don't call those things "accidents".

On 4/29/13 4:33 AM, wrote:
>
> Is there a better term for some cases?

Collision?


- Peter

On Wed, 1 May 2013 18:24:04 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

>I'm referring to instances where.....
>
>..Waiting one extra second after the light turned green prevented you from being T-boned by a red-light runner.
>
>...Slowing down just a couple mph allowed you to negotiate that icey hair-pin turn exit off the parkway instead of skidding down a steep embankment and crashing and bursting into flames.
>
>...Pulling into a parking lot to take that cellphone call instead of completing it on the road, so you didn't drift into the opposite traffic lanes - into the path an oncoming bus.
>
>...Waiting at a 4-way stop sign when it really was your turn, saved you from being followed by an angry roadrager to your house.
>
>I don't call those things "accidents".

I wouldn't call them accidents either because in what you described
nothing happened - accidents were avoided.

So I guess I don't understand the point of your question.

Ashton:

My point is, if those actions in those examples were not taken, would the outcomes(being T-boned by a redlight runner, etc) be considered "accidents" or simply "crashes"?

On Apr 29, 8:15*pm, Ashton Crusher > wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Apr 2013 04:33:23 -0700 (PDT),
> wrote:
>
> >Is there a better term for some cases?
>
> The politically correct term these days is to call them "crashes".

<q>A vehicle striking anything is referred to as a crash. The widely
used term accident is considered unsuitable for technical use. -
Accident conveys a sense that the losses are due exclusively to fate.

Perhaps this is what gives accident its most potent appeal - the sense
that it exonerates participants from responsibility. Accident also
conveys a sense that losses are devoid of predictability.

Yet the purpose of studying safety is to examine factors that
influence the likelihood of occurrence and the resulting harm from
crashes.

Some crashes are purposeful acts for which the term accident would be
inappropriate even in popular use. At least a few percent (perhaps as
much as 5%) of driver fatalities are suicides.There is a body of
evidence that media reports of suicide generate copycat suicides,
including by motor vehicle, which provides the most socially
acceptable and readily available means.<>

There is ongoing discontinuance of the word accident. In 2001 the
British Medical Journal prohibited the use of the term in its
publications, and in 1999 the NHTSA renamed various data files. For
example, the former Fatal Accident Reporting System had its name
changed to the present Fatality Analysis Reporting System, thus
preserving the acronym FARS. The traffic engineering profession is
proving a slower learner on this matter.</q>
- Leonard Evans, Traffic Safety, 2004

> To
> me any crash that you didn't intend to have is an accident.

That apparently common logic dispenses with any "duty of care".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_of_care
-----

- gpsman

On Thu, 2 May 2013 18:23:14 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

>Ashton:
>
>My point is, if those actions in those examples were not taken, would the outcomes(being T-boned by a redlight runner, etc) be considered "accidents" or simply "crashes"?

...Waiting one extra second after the light turned green prevented you
from being T-boned by a red-light runner.

that's an accident for the guy with the green and a crash for the guy
with the red

....Slowing down just a couple mph allowed you to negotiate that icy
hair-pin turn exit off the parkway instead of skidding down a steep
embankment and crashing and bursting into flames.

This is where it starts to get into the PC territory. Some people
would say it's a crash because "they didn't slow down enough". Others
would say it's an accident because it was pretty much the same as
other times where they didn't skid and no one can be expected to
always judge everything perfectly. To satisfy people like that you
would have to somehow always drive slow enough to never skid yet
always drive fast enough to not become a hazard to those behind you.

....Pulling into a parking lot to take that cellphone call instead of
completing it on the road, so you didn't drift into the opposite
traffic lanes - into the path an oncoming bus.

Absent some special circumstance, driving into the path of a bus, no
matter what the reason (unless it was to avoid the locomotive in your
own lane) is pretty much always a crash.

....Waiting at a 4-way stop sign when it really was your turn, saved
you from being followed by an angry roadrager to your house.

Not sure this qualifies as it's not really either a crash or an
accident, more of an altercation.

The real solution as far as book keeping is to just call em all
crashes OR accidents and in the report list the ostensible cause.