I don't agree, probably because we have different meanings and implications around the word "accident".
For me at least, there's some subtle semantics surrounding the word "accident" which are at the very least unhelpful in the context of traffic incidents.
There are lots of incidents which are not "accidents", they're the result of a driver choosing to do something, or choosing to not to do something.
A crash shouldn't be described as "They accidentally ran a red light", or "They accidentally went too fast into a curve", or "They accidentally failed to notice the pedestrian".
In those scenarios, "intention" doesn't matter, and the driver fucked up and cause the crash and should be held accountable/responsible. There's no wriggle room there for reducing the responsibility by saying "accidents happen, it wasn't my fault..." There was no "accident", there was a fuckup on someone's part.
Motorcyclists here in Australia have a term "SMIDSY" - which stands for "Sorry mate, I didn't see you", which is pretty much guaranteed to be the first thing out of a driver's mouth after they've just driven straight into you. It's not that they didn't "see you", it's that they didn't bother looking, or that they looked and didn't take any notice. Those are not "accidents". They are fuckups.
Intention absolutely always matters. People often do drive through lights unintentionally. If that is a proximate cause of an accident they are punished for negligence, not murder. Even intentionally driving through a light is a form of negligence. The only intentional crashes happen where people use the vehicle as a weapon[1]. If you deliberately run someone down you are a murderer, whether you broke any traffic laws while doing so is irrelevant. If you kill your wife by deliberately crashing into her, the cops aren't going to write you a speeding ticket while they read you your rights.
[1] There are also rare cases where crashes are deliberately caused by non-drivers. A crash resulting from someone icing a road, throwing a brick at a car from an overpass, or tampering with a vehicle are deliberate crashes even though the driver(s) involved are not at fault. But if the road is icy because of something like a broken water line, it is very possible for nobody to be responsible: a truly blameless accident.
Oh sure. I'm not proposing people who fuck up be treated as murderers. It's just that in my head, saying it's "an accident" is minimising the blame. If you drive through a light unintentionally, that's totally your fault. You should have and could have avoided doing that by paying attention. You're right that it's negligence. I'm less sure than you are that it deserves to be called "an accident". It seems to me way to close to the schoolyard bully claiming "I was just waving my arm around, he put his face in front of my fist."
> But if the road is icy because of something like a broken water line, it is very possible for nobody to be responsible: a truly blameless accident.
I don't live in a place where it freezes, so I'm kinda not the right person to have an opinion here - but I would have thought that if you live/drive somewhere that ice or black ice happens, then there's at least some "driving to the conditions" argument to be made that the driver was negligent in that case?
I guess bottom line there is that to me, negligence is not covered under the term "accident". If the incident should have been avoided by a driver not being negligent, then it wasn't an accident.
(But I'm not a linguist, and am questioning whether that's a widely held opinion. Thinking about it, it's likely because I'm a long-term motorcycle rider. I cannot afford to have "accidents", because they hurt _way_ more than people driving cars having "accidents". I consider myself at fault for any situation _I_ could have avoided by "being less negligent", and perhaps unfairly impose that burden on other drivers as well. But I will none the less get angry when they say "Sorry. It was just an accident" while I'm the one lying bleeding on the road because they were negligent...)
The first negligent action could be climbing on the bike.
I think I'm safer slowing and rolling through a stop sign in my truck than I am getting on the bike in the first place.
I realize it's different-- causing a threat for others and all. But I think the point stands-- you're just debating where negligence starts.
I tend to agree with the GP. It's an accident anytime it wasn't intentional, even if it's a preventable accident.
Generally this is in the context of driving too fast.
Speeding is a choice. You are either intentionally disregarding your speedometer, or the designers of the street have made it too easy to get to higher rates of speed rather than apply calming designs to slow traffic down (another intentional choice).
The intention is baked in.
No, traffic violations are generally strict liability, intent, or mental state more generally, does not matter.
Sure, if you intend to kill and do, then you will also be guilty of murder, but that is a separate and additional issue.
A pedestrian crossing a street is required to look for cars and avoid the road if there is a risk for a collision. It is in the law, even if the crossing sign is green. No person has a right to cross a road or driving a car over a crossing. Both individuals is only allowed to do their thing if it can be done without causing an accident.
The same is true for traffic lights. Green does not mean you have a right to drive through, but rather means that drivers are allowed to drive through if such thing is possible without causing a traffic incident. Basically ever single action on the road under any circumstance is qualified under the condition that it won't cause an accident.
Naturally no pedestrian is going to be charged for being hit by a car unless there is some truly extraordinary circumstances, but the intent of the law is to make people understand that traffic is about mutual communication and responsibility.
Are you sure about that? It would mean that it's technically illegal to cross a road unless you're absolutely certain that there can't be a speeding driver around the next corner who's gonna get to you faster than you can react. Or that you aren't allowed to cross the street at a green light even when all the cars are waiting because you can't actually be certain that a car isn't gonna start driving suddenly and run you over. Or that someone tailgating you is somehow caused in part by you.
It's pretty ridiculous to claim that both sides failed to comply with the laws in every incident.
Look at the perspective of the law maker. The goal is zero traffic accidents, the vision zero as it is called (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_Zero). If pedestrian think that they have a given right to cross the road then there is a risk that people won't apply common sense but rather just step out on the road without looking or thinking.
Similarly, the driver of the car is always guilty of negligence, regardless if the pedestrian is at fault. This include if the pedestrian walk against red. Just because the other party is also at fault does not diminish the obligations of the driver to not hit a pedestrian. Regardless of traffic light, the driver is not allowed to drive over the crossing unless they are reasonable certain to not cause a traffic incident.
In the extreme, if both driver and pedestrian wanted to be 100% guarantied to not cause an accident then both would simply stand still. In practice both hopefully act with common sense and work together to avoid an accident, which happens to align with the goal of those who wrote the law.
> Are you sure about that?
There are at least single vehicle incidents which do not involve two people. Over cooking a corner and spearing off into the scenery is just one person fucking up.
But I agree with the thrust of the GPs argument, in any two (or more) vehicle incident, there was probably one party who “caused” it, and another party who should have avoided it. Not _every_ incident, but I’d argue that it applies to the vast majority of multiple vehicle incidents.
When you drive at speed (above ~25-30 mph for someone not protected by a giant steel cocoon, I think ~50 mph for someone who is), you are now in control of a loaded weapon that will kill or seriously injure anyone against whom it goes off. If you are unable, or unwilling, to handle a loaded weapon with the requisite amount of care to avoid negligence, then perhaps you are not deserving of the privilege of handling that weapon.
>> negligent homicide (although it's usually treated as manslaughter instead of murder)
Not usually. It can never be treated as murder. If it was negligent then the killing lacked indent per se.
>> If you are unable, or unwilling, to handle a loaded weapon with the requisite amount of care to avoid negligence
Good luck selling that to the AARP. People have medical incidents behind the wheel every day. A heart attack/stroke/seizure can easily result in a crash, including deaths. We don't lock people up for that unless they were negligent, unless they had some reason to know it would happen. Everyone one of us may suffer an aortic dissection or brain aneurysm at any moment. That's why large commercial aircraft have two pilots. Driving while human is not negligence.
That said, many car crashes are probably caused by negligent actions anyways. Someone who is speeding through a stop sign without stopping is negligent in doing so, especially because the kind of people who do that once tend to do it all the time.
If you were to define the word "accident" as "everything not deliberate", then, sure ok. But that's not how the word is typically used.
There are vanishingly few real accidents in traffic. Nearly all crashes are also not intentional.
The vast middle is crashes due to driver incompetence or negligence. Not intentional, but totally avoidable if the driver had done their job (pay attention, be lucid, have suitable skills).
People like to call things "accidents" because it shifts blame to destiny. But reality is that nearly all crashes could have been avoided by the driver.