Re: Auto accident versus collision; I was wrong

On 2025-03-19 1:30 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:
 

. . .

 

When I was driving school buses, I found that my employers never used
the word "accident". If someone hit something while driving their bus,
even if it was the merest scratch, it was never an accident: it was
*always* a collision. (I'm sure this would have been true if a person
were hit, although I don't recall anyone ever hitting a person while I
worked there.) I feel sure this was their way of making us take
responsibility for what had happened. We didn't get to say anything that
implied that whatever happened couldn't be helped in some way. Even if
we weren't at fault, I think they expected that we could have done
something to prevent or minimize the event. Drivers were always taken
off the road for a day or two and made to have a retraining session with
another driver after a collision.

 Your employer wasn't wrong: there was a collision.
 I was a school bus driver too. We were told we would be blamed for a
rear end collision (the vehicle behind colliding with the rear of the
school bus) regardless of what the law said, because they always wanted
us to leave adequate distance behind the vehicle ahead of the bus.
 

We were certainly urged to leave plenty of following distance but I don't recall anyone ever insisting that we were automatically at fault if someone rear-ended us since that was beyond our control. I have trouble believing your employers could have been serious about that.

I can't really find fault with that approach. Language DOES matter and
calling a collision what it was is the right thing to do. You can always
add an adjective like "unavoidable" if that applies.

 Ok, but that's a finding after a review or investigation; never state
that without investigating at all.
 

Absolutely! I didn't mean to imply otherwise.

Calling everything an accident is dishonest since most "accidents"
involved some actions that made the accident more likely, even if there
was no intent involved.

 Here, you've fallen into the semantic trap yourself. First off, you just
misused the word "accident". A pedestrian crosses in front of a driver and
is struck by the vehicle. After gathering witness statements, the patrol
officer or accident investigator learns that the vehicle accelerated rather
than braking. That's evidence of intent. The collision was no accident.
>

Agreed! But as for my use of accident, I deliberately put it in quotes to imply that, while it might be called that by someone, it really would be better to call it a collision. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Calling incidents without intent "accidents" is NOT dishonest. The word
does not and never has implied "unavoidable" nor "without fault". People
who think that's what "accident" implies are wrong.
 

Fair enough: "dishonest" was the wrong word to use. It is certainly possible for a collision to be beyond the control of a given driver, although some might say that it doesn't matter if you hit someone because you were on glare ice, which you obviously didn't cause, because you should have known somehow and taken a different road (as if another road wouldn't be icy too) or you should "obviously" have driven slower (as if it is always blindingly obvious that a given patch of road is icy).

For example, if I'm yapping on a cell phone - or in an animated
conversation with my passengers - I am contributing to the likelihood of
an accident even if I very much don't want to have one.  Anything that
distracts me as a driver may contribute to a collision whether it is
talking or driving drunk or on too little sleep.

 You're right. Nevertheless, if you are at fault for a collision, it's still
an accident due to the lack of intent.
 

Fair enough.

Because Lehto pointed out chargable criminal conduct by the driver at fault
for causing the accident under the old language THAT WAS NOT A COLLISION
WITH THE AT FAULT DRIVER'S VEHICLE, I am going to resume my own use of
the word "accident" as this scenario has been brought to my attention.

Again, fair enough.
--
Rhino