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Comment by Apreche | Hacker News Reader

Crash, not accident.

Do you have something substantive to add to the discussion or just a drive by smart remark?

This kind of twitter style cheap points comment does nothing for the discussion, and should be discouraged in adult discourse. Imagine if this was what HN consisted of, people chiming in with clever "words matter" comments with no substance

Do you have something substantive to add to the discussion? Or just a snide remark at them?

Thanks for the feedback!

Correct. Accident implies it was not somebody’s fault.

Every.Single.Crash. Is someone’s fault. There are no exceptions. It wasn’t the ice or snows fault, it was your fault for going to fast for conditions.

Accident means it was unintended.

check some usage notes on your use of "accident"[0]

> Risk management and risk mitigation experts (such as actuaries, systems engineers, and others) generally do not approve of calling motor vehicle crashes (MVCs) "accidents", because they advisedly reserve that term for things not directly caused by human recklessness or negligence. Because it is predictably obvious (and directly causal) that distracted driving (e.g., texting, IMing/DMing, videogaming, or intoxication while driving) produces MVCs, those MVCs are not "accidents". Nonetheless, among the general public, MVCs are quite often called "accidents" rather than "crashes" or "collisions", not only by idiomatic inertia but also because connotatively, it steers clear of broaching the topic of blame assignment, whereas a phrase like "he crashed" connotes blame.

There's also a relevant twitter reply concerning intent[1]

> On the part of the individual drivers, it was accidental. > > On the part of the city, it was deliberate - they built an unsafe road, they can see the statistics - it's so unsafe that TV news crews come to talk about how dangerous it is - and they don't fix it.

(final edit) We know how to fix the roads - there's a large body of evidence showing the "Complete Streets" approach (bollards, lane reductions, et cetera) works.

[0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/accident#Usage_notes

[1] https://twitter.com/DragonfrogMog/status/1502316785583808514

Your not-so-authoritative citation suggests that "accident" should not be used as a general term, which I'm inclined to agree with, but it in absolutely no way suggests - as you do - that there is no such thing as an accident. Accidents do happen. Even a completely attentive and competent driver can fall prey to a mechanical failure, a rock falling in the roadway, etc. Saying that they must have been going "too fast for conditions" without any definition other than "the speed they were going when the collision occurred" is circular bullshit. As long as driving - including the driving done by others to support haughty "non drivers"' lifestyles - is necessary, there will be genuine accidents as well as collisions that are the result of recklessness or negligence.

That's complete and utter nonsense. Crashes not caused by driver error are rare, but not nonexistent.

People can for example get epileptic seizures without having any reason to believe there was something wrong with them before they got in the car. Likewise unforeseen factors can lead to errors in civil and automotive engineering without requiring any negligence or other wrongdoing.

I agree we should be defaulting to neutral terms like "crash" or "collision". I hesitate to fully agree with "every single crash is someone's fault" though because I think society has to accept some risk (less than we currently accept with driving) and because it's important to say more than one person can be at fault. There are problems throughout the system:

* Drivers need to slow down and be more cautious. I'd like to see criminal charges more often when drivers act out of the expected norms.

* The expected norms for drivers need to change. (I hope this happens as self-driving cars take to the roads more.) When most people are taking risks regularly, I don't think it's as productive to come down heavily in the infrequent case where the risk is realized.

* We should also consider road design, as the article says. There have been other articles about this on HN [1, 2]. I'd like to see a shift from design that overwhelmingly favors cars to design that puts public transit and cyclists on at least a level playing field, if not considering them first.

* Vehicle design may need to change. My (possibly incorrect) understanding is that crash standards have greatly improved the outcome for people inside a particular crashing vehicle, but maybe not for the "other guy", particularly when that's a pedestrian or cyclist.

[1] a particular intersection: https://singletrackworld.com/2018/01/collision-course-why-th...

[2] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/10/30/the-stroad

we can apply systematic changes in the design of streets, in giving people mobility alternatives to personal vehicle use, et cetera.

so yes, there is "someone" who is at "fault" and it might not even be the people on the road.

So should I go 5 mph in wooded areas to avoid hitting deer?

An LA journalist recently got roasted in their Twitter replies after having posted about an "accident" - this is extremely relevant (we're sick of these "outcomes" in Los Angeles):

https://twitter.com/irapolis/status/1502190933609046016

https://twitter.com/LosAngelesWalks/status/15023321982375239...

https://twitter.com/derekbauman/status/1502363542787342337

https://twitter.com/ChrisByBike/status/1502326431749066755

https://twitter.com/DragonfrogMog/status/1502316785583808514

https://twitter.com/AirlineFlyer/status/1502393173234098180

https://twitter.com/mateosfo/status/1502358306874036227

https://twitter.com/thebostonlol/status/1502328407547334667

can this post's topic title please be changed reflecting this line of thought?

edit: or even better, if Professor Gelman is reading, you can update your blog post. Traffic violence isn't accidental.

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