Crash or 'accident'?

Howard said:

Hi everyone,

Thanks for contributing to this topic. Lots of interesting opinions.

Those really interested in the topic might like to look at the 'Rocktalk' forum which has an
extensive thread on this issue. 'Rocktalk?' Whats that? Rocktalk is one of the best forums in the
country if you want a good middle of the road debate on just about any topic. (It is also has the
best forum layout I have come across). Most contributors are, naturally, rock climbers but plenty
of cyclists climb as well (me included). Intelligent comment guranteed! Have a look at

Does it have good helmet threads?

Tony

raven-family.comraven-family.comOpen ↗

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place" George
Bernard Shaw.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

>> "Paul <- [censored]" <[email hidden]>> writes:

Quoted message said:

[censored].

Quoted message said:

Why are you assuming that it's always the drivers fault that cyclists and pedestrians die ?

He didn't say (or imply) "always" as fair as I can see.

--
.. I think I'll KILL myself by leaping out of this 14th STORY WINDOW while reading ERICA
JONG'S poetry!!

Paul - censored said:

[censored].

Why are you assuming that it's always the drivers fault that cyclists and pedestrians die ?

He didn't. Why are you making things up? "Accident" implies no blame when the opposite is nearly
always the case.

John Buckley

Paul - censored said:

Why are you assuming that it's always the drivers fault that cyclists and pedestrians die ?

Fair point. Driver error is only to blame in a little over 90% of cases.

--
Guy
===
I wonder if you wouldn't mind piecing out our imperfections with your thoughts; and while you're
about it perhaps you could think when we talk of bicycles, that you see them printing their proud
wheels i' the receiving earth; thanks awfully.

highwaycode.gov.uk09.shtmlOpen ↗ highwaycode.gov.uk09.shtmlOpen ↗

On Fri, 17 Jan 2003 14:44:42 +0000, John B did issue forth:

Quoted message said:

"Accident" implies no blame when the opposite is nearly always the case.

Perhaps then accident is the right word for use on a traffic bulletin. Blame should really only be
apportioned once the accident has been properly investigated and sorted out by the Police and/or
insurance companies. It's something that forms the mainstay of British justice; Innocent until
proved guilty.

--
Huw Pritchard | Replace bounce with huw | to reply by mail | www.secretworldgovernment.org

Just zis Guy said:

Paul - censored said:

Why are you assuming that it's always the drivers fault that cyclists and pedestrians die ?

Fair point. Driver error is only to blame in a little over 90% of cases.

Stats I saw are 1/3 driver fault, 1/3 cyclist fault and 1/3 shared blame. Of course one can spin
this to say drivers were at fault in 2/3rds of accidents, but then so were cyclists.

Tony

raven-family.comraven-family.comOpen ↗

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place" George
Bernard Shaw.

Paul Rudin, in "]news:[email hidden] scribbled ;

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

>>> "Paul <- [censored]" <[email hidden]>> writes:

Quoted message said:

[censored].

Quoted message said:

Why are you assuming that it's always the drivers fault that cyclists and pedestrians die ?

He didn't say (or imply) "always" as fair as I can see.

OK .. re-reading the piece I can see how I read it and that I may have seen it as ambiguous at
best .. 😉

If that isn't what was meant, I apologise.

--
...................................Paul-[censored] Seti 1330 wu in 9275 hours

John B, in "]news:[email hidden] scribbled ;

Quoted message said:

Paul - censored said:

[censored].

Why are you assuming that it's always the drivers fault that cyclists and pedestrians die ?

He didn't. Why are you making things up? "Accident" implies no blame when the opposite is nearly
always the case.

John Buckley

OK .. re-reading the piece I can see how I read it and that I may have seen it as ambiguous
at best ..

If that isn't what was meant, I apologise.

--
...................................Paul-[censored] Seti 1330 wu in 9275 hours

"Huw Pritchard" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

On Fri, 17 Jan 2003 14:44:42 +0000, John B did issue forth:

Quoted message said:

"Accident" implies no blame when the opposite is nearly always the case.

Perhaps then accident is the right word for use on a traffic bulletin. Blame should really only be
apportioned once the accident has been properly investigated and sorted out by the Police and/or
insurance companies. It's something that forms the mainstay of British justice; Innocent until
proved guilty.

Collision implies someone to blame, but without apportioning it. A traffic bulletin saying "There's
holdups on the A435 near Alcester due to a collision between a car and a lorry carring bread"
doesn't say who's to blame, does it.

It would be as wrong to say that no-one's to blame for an incident as it would be to blame the wrong
person from my point of view. The wording I just suggested would do neither

A

David Hansen said:

On Fri, 17 Jan 2003 17:42:01 -0000 someone who may be "Tony Raven" <[email hidden]>
wrote this:-

Quoted message said:

Stats I saw are 1/3 driver fault, 1/3 cyclist fault and 1/3 shared blame.

Where did you see these "statistics"?

Can't lay my hands on that particular one at the moment but this from the Camden Cycling Campaign
Newsletter greengas.u-net.comNewsletterOct02.html:Open ↗

"As mentioned last time, the June CCC meeting was treated to a fascinating presentation by Chief
Inspector Ian Brooks, one of the Metropolitan Police's five Traffic Area Commanders, and a cyclist
himself. He had recently commissioned new research on cycle related collisions. 421 such collisions
within the Metropolitan Police area during 2001 were analysed by a specialist police investigator.
Out of the 421, in 169 (40%) blame was attributed to cyclists. Of the 421, 19 (4.5%) caused a death,
and of these 19, 12 (63%) were attributed to cyclists (underlined below):

The breakdown of the 19 fatal collisions is given below, number followed by cause.

4: cyclists riding off the pavement
5: another vehicle turning left
6: cyclists disobeying a STOP or GIVE WAY sign
7: cyclists changing lane injudiciously
8: cyclist overtaking on the offside injudiciously
9: drunk cyclist
10: cyclist emerging carelessly from a private drive
11: cyclist overtaking on the nearside injudiciously
12: injudicious opening of a car door
13: vehicle driving too close to vehicle in front
14: vehicle disobeying automated traffic signal
15: another driver/vehicle factor "

Tony

raven-family.comraven-family.comOpen ↗

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place" George
Bernard Shaw.

On Sun, 19 Jan 2003 11:17:14 -0000 someone who may be "Tony Raven" <[email hidden]>
wrote this:-

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

* a small geographical area

620 sq miles, 7.2 million people? Bigger than the total urban area and population of Scotland!

But still a small geographical area. Performing the same analysis on the whole of England may be
rather different.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

* are under 17s excluded from the cycle figures?

I doubt it. Is that relevant?

Extremely. There are few under 17s driving cars and one needs to compare apples with apples.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

* was only transport cycling considered?

I doubt it. Is that relevant?

Extremely. I doubt if many motorists were performing stunt tricks with their cars. One needs to
compare people going shopping, to the cinema and to work with people going shopping, to the cinema
and to work.

Quoted message said:

The work was commissioned by a policeman cyclist

Who did not actually do the work.

Quoted message said:

Cambridgeshire found similar results: [snip] (Source Peterborough City Council)

So, was the study of Peterborough or Cambridgeshire?

--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E I will always explain revoked
keys, unless the UK government prevents me using the RIP Act 2000.

Just zis Guy said:

I think if we've learned nothing else from the politics of the last twenty years we've learned
that the London experience is so completely different from the average that policies based on it
are invariably fatally flawed.

Errr we weren't discussing politics and policies, we were talking about the responsibility for
accidents between cyclists and motorists.

Tony

raven-family.comraven-family.comOpen ↗

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place" George
Bernard Shaw.

David Hansen said:

On Sun, 19 Jan 2003 11:17:14 -0000 someone who may be "Tony Raven" <[email hidden]>
wrote this:-

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

* a small geographical area

620 sq miles, 7.2 million people? Bigger than the total urban area and population of Scotland!

But still a small geographical area. Performing the same analysis on the whole of England may be
rather different.

Maybe slightly because London is an urban area and countryside is not represented. OTOH urban areas
are where most cycle accidents occur.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

* are under 17s excluded from the cycle figures?

I doubt it. Is that relevant?

Extremely. There are few under 17s driving cars and one needs to compare apples with apples.

But the apples are road users and since there are no age limits on cyclists but there is on car
drivers I suspect you just want to artificially remove young cyclists, who feature
disproportionately in accident figures, to aid you argument.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

* was only transport cycling considered?

I doubt it. Is that relevant?

Extremely. I doubt if many motorists were performing stunt tricks with their cars. One needs to
compare people going shopping, to the cinema and to work with people going shopping, to the cinema
and to work.

Err why? Surely what matters is the totality of accidents between people cycling and driving, not
some randomly selected subgroup.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The work was commissioned by a policeman cyclist

Who did not actually do the work.

Ah the conspiracy theory

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Cambridgeshire found similar results: [snip] (Source Peterborough City Council)

So, was the study of Peterborough or Cambridgeshire?

Cambridgeshire (of which Peterborough is a part). Are they not allowed to issue data on the county
they are part of?

Tony

raven-family.comraven-family.comOpen ↗

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place" George
Bernard Shaw.

"Tony Raven" <[email hidden]> wrote: } Does it have good helmet threads?

What standard of thread do you have on your head boss?

So, are you saying that if a thief argues that they didn't intend to kill or injure the victim in
the course of the theft they would only be punished with theft? How often does this occur?

Michael MacClancy said:

So, are you saying that if a thief argues that they didn't intend to kill or injure the victim in
the course of the theft they would only be punished with theft? How often does this occur?

No, its up to the court to decide whether they did or didn't intent to kill or injure - remember
Tony Martin? In case you hadn't noticed, our courts work on an adversarial system not by taking the
defendant's statements at face value.

Tony

raven-family.comraven-family.comOpen ↗

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place" George
Bernard Shaw.

"Danny Colyer" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Howard said:

The constant use of the word 'accident', especially by journalists, to refer even to those
crashes caused by the most blatant dangerous driving seems to me one reason why we all seem to
be in denial of the realities of our 'car culture'.

I agree wholeheartedly, and am surprised to see that so many people here don't.

Me too, and thanks for the following comments. I no longer write accident but crash, and this
practice is spreading in the hospitals.

TerryJ

Headline in the New York Times yesterday "Six Yale Students Die in Crash" I don't know if they
always use the term over there ... All the best Dan Gregory

Dan Gregory said:

Headline in the New York Times yesterday "Six Yale Students Die in Crash" I don't know if they
always use the term over there ... All the best Dan Gregory

They're probably referring to the Stock Market ;-)

Tony

raven-family.comraven-family.comOpen ↗

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place" George
Bernard Shaw.

On Fri, 17 Jan 2003 17:42:01 -0000 someone who may be "Tony Raven" <[email hidden]>
wrote this:-

Quoted message said:

Stats I saw are 1/3 driver fault, 1/3 cyclist fault and 1/3 shared blame.

Where did you see these "statistics"?

--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E I will always explain revoked
keys, unless the UK government prevents me using the RIP Act 2000.