Losing control over the "A-Word"

Memo to all reporters, especially traffic reporters:

(a) there are no traffic "accidents".

As I have said repeatedly, the word "accident" implies randomness, an Act of God, a twist of fate, an event for which no reasonable precautions could have been taken.

Crashes or collisions - the words approved by most in the traffic safety business - are almost never "accidental".

Now, anyone's individual involvement in a particular event may be accidental - you're driving along and a railway car falls off an overpass on top of your car, as happened in Whitby a couple of years ago.

Nothing the victims could reasonably have done to predict or avoid that.

But the fact that the railway car fell off the overpass was due to somebody doing something wrong, or a failure of somebody to do something right.

Letting them off the hook by calling it an "accident" doesn’t help.

(b) Cars do not "lose control". As my friend Gary Magwood, one of Canada's leading advanced  driver trainers, pointed out in a letter he sent to the editor recently regarding a story in our May 26 issue about two deaths in two separate "accidents" in my home town of Milton, he has "…never witnessed a vehicle that could 'lose control' without human input. Parked in the driveway, vehicles are relatively benign. In one day it would appear that technology has leapfrogged and due to a malfunction of their systems, two vehicles lost control and crashed, and another changed lanes and collided with another vehicle."

He adds, "Drivers, who either lack sufficient education and training or are impaired, distracted, or suffer a medical emergency, lose control, change lanes or create the circumstances for crashes and collisions.

"Vehicle crashes and collisions are predictable and preventable and are not contingent on the behaviour of inanimate objects."

Couldn't - haven't - said it better myself.

Almost by definition, we journalists believe that words are important. Using the correct words to describe what we are writing about is paramount.

Reporters - choose you words carefully.

Editors, wield your metaphorical red pencils ruthlessly.

 

Comments

[Evan Downing]

Could not agree more. There is no 'accident', it's a CAUSED OCCURRENCE!

[Leslie Thorpe]

I would agree. I was a student of yours at Ryerson. You taught us, that the computer programs of the time fell into certain, distinguishable, categories. In the same way, these "accidents" are also able to be so classified. I have always stressed to my children that "accidents" are a result of being inattentive or pre-occupied. However, one of my children was hit by a drunk driver and the other was hit in a school parking lot. The good news was , however, neither was in the car at the time.No matter how good the training of the driver, one can not always predict the actions of others, especially when the car is parked.

Sez Jim: Wow! Another blast from the past. First, I'm glad neither of your kids was injured. Car crashes may not be totally predictable, but neither are they "accidental", at least not in my understanding of that word! To me, calling an incident "accidental" absolves all participants of responsibility. Now, SOME participants may be guilt-free, but somebody somewhere has to be called to account.

[D. Lord]

As a traffic safety expert, I have a different view about the use of the term “accident.” The term indeed refers to “randomness” and crashes are in fact random events. If they were not random, they would be referred to as deterministic, which means that we should be able to know when a crash will occur with certainty*. Even though we know important risk factors associated with crashes, nobody can determine with perfect knowledge when a crash will occur (say tomorrow at 4 pm on the Gardiner at mile point X involving vehicles Y and W).

By using the term “accident,” people (like me) understand that we not referring to the crash as an act of God, but for each event, there are contributing factors that lead to the event. However, each crash in itself is a random event. This is why we are using statistical models to analyze these random events. In fact, the main assumption for these models relies on the fact that observations need to be random and independent events.

*As detailed in an NHTSA study published about two years ago, more than 90% of the crashes investigated using in-vehicle monitoring devices were attributed to driver distraction. Thus, when and where drivers will be distracted cannot be known with certainty.

Sez Jim: I guess it depends on whether you look at the A-Word from a statistical/mathematical perspective, or a semantic perspective. As an engineer and a journalist, I like to think I can see if from either side. And I think most people use the A-word in the sense of not assigning responsibility, which is why most (!) traffic safety experts prefer not to use it.

[Andrew Metcalfe]

I can't help but notice that in the very post that precedes this, you mention the tragic tale of your would be sister, who was run down in what would seemingly be an accident - something that you yourself describe as "just a tragic thing", one where "No-one [is] at fault". That sounds suspiciously like an accident.

_Am

Yes, it comes pretty close. But sadly, the fault was with her - she ran out between parked cars. So again, the involvement of the truck driver was clearly accidental, and her death was far from planned or intentional, hence accidental in that sense. But still, something wrong was done, with tragic consequences.

[Ajlouny]

I agree that there is no such thing as an accident...there is always someone or something at fault.