The phrase “car accident” is used almost reflexively, both in colloquial and media contexts. It hardly seems objectionable: its dictionary definition is “an event that is not planned or intended.” And no one intends to crash their car.
But we do make choices that lead to car accidents.
In the 1960s, William Haddon, the first director of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, used to make anyone who used the word “accident” in a meeting pay a ten-cent fine. The “A-word,” he reasoned, enabled people to take too little responsibility for the decisions that lead to driving injuries.
and also
The statistics seem to back him up on that. The leading causes of car crashes in America are:
Distracted driving (like texting or eating at the wheel)
Speeding
Drunk driving
Is #crashnotaccident inclusive of all incidents which are currently called accidents?
Is a rollover a crash?
Guess we need to think about what word would better encompass everything currently called an 'accident' but which are not a 'crash'.
more on this soon!
Roadway fatalities are soaring at a rate not seen in 50 years, resulting from crashes, collisions and other incidents caused by drivers.
Just don’t call them accidents anymore.
That is the position of a growing number of safety advocates, including grass-roots groups, federal officials and state and local leaders across the country. They are campaigning to change a 100-year-old mentality that they say trivializes the single most common cause of traffic incidents: human error.
“When you use the word ‘accident,’ it’s like, ‘God made it happen,’ ” Mark Rosekind, the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said at a driver safety conference this month at the Harvard School of Public Health.