How we think about "accidents"

A picture of a crash along a bike path in Chicago. Taken from the article I mentioned in the post.

In my favorite class of the semester (and my whole graduate program so far) we discussed car accidents, and what we should call them. My professor calls them crashes, and we debated what one seems more harsh. Most people in the class agreed that crashes seemed to be more harsh, more blame implying. I agree, if we continue to call them accidents, that means we assume they are not easily preventable, but they are! This article makes a good point that we often look for "the car" involved in an incident instead of the driver. I understand that this is more because we can easily recognize a car in an incident simply because the car obscures the view of the person driving. But we should be looking for the person as well.

I agree that sometimes there are times when you cannot prevent a crash, and those we will have to accept. Every crash I've been in there have been very easily preventable issues. Many people do not think that what they are doing will cause a crash, and often it does not. Thousands of people in the nation text while driving every day, and while only a few of those incidents cause a crash, the likelihood of causing a crash goes up much higher when a driver participates in that activity. So while you may not cause a crash every time you neglect your driving duties, everyone should know that most crashes are preventable, and most of them can be stopped if we start to pay more attention.

I think one of the first steps in this process is to start changing the way we think about "accidents" and start to take responsibility for our lives.

R