An accident is an accident

[Boris Bajic]

There is an unusual mood sweeping through some areas of CC, resulting in a desire to change the meaning of words in the English language.

Something I have seen more than once over the months is a fascination with the implications (or otherwise) of the word 'accident'.

Driven perhaps by the current practice of some emergency services to use the word 'incident', some posters are starting to find the word accident somehow offensive or inaccurate when discussing traffic accidents.

There is a feeling in some quarters that the word 'accident' implies an absence of blame. It does not. It never has. Implicit in its meanng is an absence of intention, but there is no explicit or implicit connection with blame or culpability.

If professional bodies have their own reasons for adapting language use for their own purposes, let them do it. But a collision not intentionally caused is an accident.

Thank you.

 

[helston90]

Danny Butterman: Hey, why can't we say "accident," again?
Nicholas Angel: Because "accident" implies there's nobody to blame.

 

[Drago]

We get told to call them 'collisions' on pain of a beating from the Chiefs batman, who clearly has nothing better to do.

Brilliant, until a car leaves the road, lands on its roof in a field, the driver dies, but the car hasn't actually collided with anything. What to call them then? An excursion? A jolly?

 

[glenn forger]

"A man died in an accident today after he poured petrol over himself and shot a firework down his trousers".

Anyone who can't understand why using the word "accident" for an entirely forseeable and avoidable event is daft is too stupid to argue with.

 

[BentMikey]

Sometimes car crashes are accidents, and sometimes they are not. Collision or incident are better words, they aren't offensive, and they aren't loaded, and they aren't part of the blame avoidance game that "accident" takes part in.

That taxi driver that knocked me off? That was not an accident.

The drink driver that killed my father? That was not an accident.

When you have a better word to use, and you stubbornly insist on using accident after being shown how very offensive and wrong it is, then you are a James Blunt.

 

[addictfreak]

This should be good, I think I might get a few beers and a bag of nuts ready!

 

[BentMikey]

I recently got TfL bus updates on twitter to stop using the word accident. They were convinced of the wrongness of using accident very easily.

 

[Markymark]

This is all getting too personal and not a good part of the forum.

 

[fossyant]

This should be good, I think I might get a few beers and a bag of nuts ready!

My birthday evening's entertainment.

 

[Drago]

So they're not accidents.

A lot of them don't involve colliding with anything, so they aren't collisions.

What to call them? Uh-oh's? Woopsies?

But then just as part of my mind starts to mull the matter, the other part of my mind wrestles it back from the precipice and reminds it that I don't deserve to be alive if my existence is so shallow that I've descended to pondering sonething as pathetically unimportant as this.

 

[Fasta Asloth]

We get told to call them 'collisions' on pain of a beating from the Chiefs batman, who clearly has nothing better to do.

Brilliant, until a car leaves the road, lands on its roof in a field, the driver dies, but the car hasn't actually collided with anything. What to call them then? An excursion? A jolly?

its roof collided with the field...?

 

[Lurker]

So they're not accidents.

A lot of them don't involve colliding with anything, so they aren't collisions.

What to call them? Uh-oh's? Woopsies?

But then just as part of my mind starts to mull the matter, the other part of my mind wrestles it back from the precipice and reminds it that I don't deserve to be alive if my existence is so shallow that I've descended to pondering sonething as pathetically unimportant as this.

Crash?

Good Roadpeace briefing, 'It’s a crash, not an accident: Ending a language of neglect and denial ' available at http://www.roadpeace.org/resources/Crash_not_Accident_May_11_2011.pdf

 

[TonyEnjoyD]

My birthday evening's entertainment.

Happy birthday Fossyant, was your conception planned, or an accident?

 

[hotfuzzrj]

Danny Butterman: Hey, why can't we say "accident," again?
Nicholas Angel: Because "accident" implies there's nobody to blame.

If it's come from Hot Fuzz it must be true!

Surrey Police call them RTCs as do most forces now I believe, however when we fill in the multi page form regarding the incident they are called ARBs - accident report books...
Go figure!

 

[snorri]

Happy birthday Fossyant, was your conception planned, or an accident?

Hey hey, See post 8, keep it clean.