While I agree with you, you know we are fighting an uphill battle. Radio, TV, and even insurance commercials still call them 'accidents', as as we both know, if you call it an accident then very few people want to take responsibility for their actions that CAUSED the collision.
Okay Mods, figure how to edit this one to fall in line with your point of view.
Needs Sleep wrote: Okay Mods, figure how to edit this one to fall in line with your point of view.
Snide remarks certainally don't enhance your credibility here. Posts are not edited according to my point-of-view, but rather to conform to forum rules. After reviewing your post delete file it would appear you also have problems in other forum sections.
* This post was
edited 02/19/08 10:08pm by an administrator/moderator *
Rick From Sequim wrote: If I walk out of safeway and get hit by a pickup, it's a crash. If I walk out of Safeway and get hit by a meteorite, it's and accident. Period.
For the record, if I was you, I would stay away from Safeway.
Quote: The word accident implies that it was an unavoidable circumstance,
Your whole article is based on the above premise and I'm not sure I agree with it and you don't attempt to prove it.
The definition of accident from Merriam-Webster online
1 a: an unforeseen and unplanned event or circumstance b: lack of intention or necessity : chance
2 a: an unfortunate event resulting especially from carelessness or ignorance
Accident seems fine to me. I don't think you are suggesting people "crash" intentionally, are you? You are just saying they are careless, reckless, and/or ignorant. All of those behaviors are consistent with accidents. Of course accidents could be avoided with more care, thoughtfullness and intelligence. Therefore, the word accident does not imply "unavoidability" in my mind.
Crash may also be appropriate. Why does it matter to you or the insurance industry?
"Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform."
Mark Twain
I agree with you one hundred percent. In fact this has been a pet peeve of mine for many years. Back in 1976 I was in the Coast Guard and assigned to do recreational boat accident investigations. It didn't take me very long to realize that there are very few accidents. Most mishaps, whether they are collisions, allisions (striking a fixed object) or many other types of incidents, are not accidents. They are caused. The cause is a string of actions taken by the person or persons involved that eventually results in the crash or whatever. Even incidents supposedly "caused" by equipment failure such as brakes, are a result of human error, usually lack of service or maintenance. Accident investigations is simply working backwards until you find the action that led to the incident.
Anyway I have been harping on this to the boating community for years and gotten very little if any headway with it. Unfortunately most people are oblivious to the results of their own behaviour. The law of unintended consequences definitely applies.
Good luck to you and you have my unconditional support
Oh by the way I too have had a few "accidents". Only one that I can honestly say was not the result of my own failure to see the ultimate outcome of my actions. However, If I had taken a different route to where I was going, it wouldn't have happened.
And I have been in one boating accident, which was my own damn fault, but fortunately no one was hurt and there was minimal damage to the boat. So even when you know all of this it is still sometimes easy to overlook the consequences of your own behaviour.
Hi: Well Johnny, it seems to me the meaning of the words "accident" and "crash" depend upon how broadly or how narrowly you want to define them. Actually, the word "accident" has become the common every day "don't blame me" EUPHEMISM for what was really an avoidable incident more correctly defined as a "crash." However, I think we all understand what the OP is saying as well as the semantics of the situation. Bill
This is an excellent topic. There is always so much talk in the news about people dying and being injured by far smaller threats than the automobile. School shootings appear in news for years, and so do plane crashes, among many other stories, but automobiles kill 37,000 or so people a year, and injure far more. Basically everyone knows at least 2 people that have had their lives changed by an automobile "accident"
The way our current laws and insurance system is set up however, it does not encourage minimizing and avoiding crashes and collisions. For example, you are traveling down the interstate and a driver beside to your left decides they want to occupy the same lane you are traveling in. You could do two things... You could swerve off to the right, go off the road, damage your vehicle and hit the guard rail, and possibly hurt yourself. The driver that caused you to do this is still blissfully cruising down the road while you are stuck with replacing your car, medical bills, higher insurance rates, etc. Now, the other thing you could do is simply hold your ground and let the other driver sideswipe you. Now, depending how how hard that person hits you, you BOTH could loose control of your vehicles and end up in the same condition. The BIG difference here however is that that inattentive driver is not footing YOUR bills for medical care, vehicle replacement and all the associated stuff.
So, the question is, does it really pay to avoid accidents? Not really, because the buck will be on you by doing so! Now, I can see minimizing the risk, but given the choice, which frequently happens in a split-second, I choose to make contact with the violating vehicle, versus attempting to avoid it, and risk getting into a single-vehicle crash that would solely be my fault! Now, I'm not saying don't be a defensive driver and stop trying to avoid getting into collisions. If there is a safe way out of the situation, go for it, but if there is not, the lesser of the two evils is to collide with the violating vehicle.
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