An accident is an accident

[Drago]

Roadpeace? Some people have waaaayyyyy too much time on their hands.

 

[gaz]

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.

incident?

What if they didn't collide with anything but it was done on purpose, then it wasn't an accident.

 

[TonyEnjoyD]

Hey hey, See post 8, keep it clean.

My postate's fine, doctor checked it just last month!

 

[simon.r]

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.

But many people do infer that an accident was unavoidable and nothing or no-one was to blame. Which, in many (most?) cases is not true. If tinkering with the definition of the word makes people think, then that's a good thing.

 

[Beebo]

my take on this is that "accident" implies a lack of intent, it doesnt imply a lack of blame.

 

[subaqua]

why is the accident book in work called the accident book ?

 

[Boris Bajic]

why is the accident book in work called the accident book ?

That's not what they wanted to call it. It only got that name by accident.......

 

[subaqua]

maybe its because nobody hurt themselves or others on purpose. you know- accidentally

 

[ComedyPilot]

IMO drivers are responsible for every INCH their vehicle travels.

Too long have they had it easy* where there's been a convenient 'out' by claiming crashing into other people/peds/cyclists/cars/motorbikes/buses/lorries/houses/walls/trees/rivers etc (you get the picture) is an 'accident'.

They also spew out that they didn't mean to do it (intent).

Well, if you are actually supposed to watch where you're going and avoid hitting things, then surely the very fact you hit something means you either weren't paying sufficient attention in the first place, or were travelling at a speed where you couldn't stop in the distance that is clear in front of/behind you? They 'intended' to keep the foot on the throttle, and off the brake, so their intent wasn't to stop.

Who did they expect to watch over their driving? A road fairy to sprinkle pixie dust to make it all ok?

*Just look at the road DEATH stats and see how many thousands of people have DIED on the UK's roads.

The drivers had intent alright. Intent to keep on going and sod the consequences. Sadly they, or worse still, many others have paid with their lives because of poor/bad/dangerous/aggressive drivers.

And now people question why some of us don't particularly like them referred to as accidents.....?

Edit: It wasn't accidental that a pillock in a 57 plate silver Peugeot over took me as I was turning right tonight. They intended to pass me despite the fact I was turning. But, according to some people, if I'd been hit, it would have just been an accident. My arse would it........

 

[addictfreak]

Just to lighten the mood:

http://www.swapmeetdave.com/Humor/Insurance/Insurance.htm

 

[glenn forger]

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.

Nobody has said we need to change the meaning of words, that's something you've just plucked out of thin air. This post is offensive trolling, especially after you've been told how upsetting and distressing your bogus claims are.

The causes of many crashes are well known.

We know that there is an increased risk of a collision when drink driving or
speeding are involved. Yet despite two decades of enforcement and education, one in six UK fatal crashes still involves a
drink driver and twice as many fatal crashes involve speeding.

While speeding is on the decrease, half of all drivers admit to
breaking the 30 mph speed limit. Endemic is a more accurate description for speeding than is Accidental.


Fatigue is believed to contribute to 10% of all fatal crashes. Fatigue is a condition that comes on gradually and with clear
warning signs, and cannot be considered unexpected.

In 2001, the British Medical Journal banned the use of the word ‘accident’ to avoid the connotation of unpredictability, since
‘most injuries and their precipitating events are predictable and preventable events’.

Fifteen years ago, leading epidemiologists described the belief that injuries are accidents as ‘the last folklore subscribed to by rational men’.

Why is it an ‘Accident’ when someone dies or is injured on our roads because someone took a
decision to flout our laws, yet Manslaughter or Grievous Bodily Harm in other circumstances?

Rita Taylor, RoadPeace Bristol Group

To see your husband lying dead in a pool of his blood on a public street, yet all he had done was use a
zebra crossing to cross a road . . . to know that the driver then burnt out the car and called someone to
tow away the remains, how can this be deemed an accident?
My husband was killed by a person or persons unknown, as surely as if they had held a gun to his head or
stabbed him with a knife. It was no accident.
Jane Evans, RoadPeace

 

[Hip Priest]

This post is offensive trolling...

I think you lost the moral high ground when you and your mate Mikey threatened to beat me up for refusing to fall in line with your jaundiced view of the world. You don't scare me, just so you know. I won't let either of you bully me off this forum.

Kamera Macht Frei.

 

[glenn forger]

I think you lost the moral high ground when you and your mate Mikey threatened to beat me up for refusing to fall in line with your jaundiced view of the world. By the way, you don't scare me.

Kamera Macht Frei.

Don't be a drama queen, nobody threatened to beat anyone up, you were told that if you said your offensive garbage to someone face to face, like Jane Evans, for instance, you might well get the kicking you richly deserve, because you are offering excuses for killer drivers who then tried to destroy the evidence by setting fire to the car.

 

[Hip Priest]

Don't be a drama queen, nobody threatened to beat anyone up, you were told that if you said your offensive garbage to someone face to face, like Jane Evans, for instance, you might well get the kicking you richly deserve, because you are offering excuses for killer drivers who then tried to destroy the evidence by setting fire to the car.

No, I'm not. I have every sympathy with those who've been killed or bereaved by dangerous drivers. But unless the collision was intentional, then it was an accident.

Even if the driver is wholly to blame and deserves extreme punishment (as the driver in the above case surely does) then it is still an accident.

That is my understanding of the word accident.

The fact you think I 'richly deserve' a kicking for a difference of opinion over a word marks you out as a zealot.

Still, if you think I deserve a kicking, then by rights you should be prepared to administer it. Let me know if you're ever in Newcastle.

 

[Hawk]

Right guys this has been done to death before and we've got the key points covered already (intent vs blame); this is a very emotive subject for many people and nothing constructive is going to come of this.

I propose we close this thread, we're going to need to agree to disagree and it would be better if we could do so without a horrific argument which is where this is clearly heading..?