Norwich Coroner - a step in the right direction

[wafflycat]

In today's local rag

<http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/content/News/story.aspx?brand=ENOnline&category=News&tBrand=enonline&tCategory=news&itemid=NOED05%20Jul%202007%2010%3A18%3A04%3A603>

or

<http://tinyurl.com/2uvksr>

A step in the right direction:-

"A campaign to encourage people to take road deaths seriously has taken a
major step forward today with the coroner of Norwich agreeing to stop using
the term “accidental death” at inquests."

and

"Today Mr Armstrong said he would no longer use “accident” when determining
the cause of a death on the roads because this would imply that no one was
responsible. Now the terms crash or collisions will be used instead.
Mr Armstrong explained: “I made a decision to no longer use the term
accident when referring to deaths on the roads. There is no such thing as
accidental death - this sends out the wrong message that car crashes are
unavoidable and no one is to blame but this is simply not true."

An excellent move by the Norwich coroner IMO.

 

[Paul Boyd]

wafflycat said the following on 05/07/2007 13:17:

> Mr Armstrong explained: “I made a decision to no longer use the term
> accident when referring to deaths on the roads. There is no such thing
> as accidental death - this sends out the wrong message that car crashes
> are unavoidable and no one is to blame but this is simply not true."

I believe the police stopped using the term "accident" years ago. It's
now an RTC, not RTA. Having this attitude moving higher up the legal
ladder can only be a good thing! Next step would be to get Radio 2
traffic announcers to stop using the word "accident"

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

 

[Ian Smith]

On Thu, 5 Jul, wafflycat <w*a*ff£y£cat*@£btco*nn£ect.com> wrote:

> Mr Armstrong explained: “I made a decision to no longer use the term
> accident when referring to deaths on the roads. There is no such thing as
> accidental death - this sends out the wrong message that car crashes are
> unavoidable and no one is to blame but this is simply not true."

I noticed recently that the traffic news (on 'Heart FM' at least)
practically never says accident now - they are all 'crash' or
'collision' or occasionally 'incident'.

regards, Ian SMith
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