The term accident doesn’t necessarily imply “normal”, but rather “no intent”.
9/11 would not qualify as an accident because the intent of the hijackers was to crash the plane.
You say car crashes are treated differently but your examples imply the opposite! That car crashes are treated identically to other mishaps which are classed as accidental or not by the intent of the actor(s).
And why is it that everyone here is defending using the term "accident" by suggesting that car crash or wreck is not a correct description?
In drunk driving for example, you intently operated the vehicle impaired and caused a crash. If you drive over the speed limit you are intently operating the vehicle recklessly. We do on occasion use the term vehicular homicide when describing these actions, but it depends on whether someone was hurt or not, even with the same action being taken (drunk/speeding/etc.).
My point of contention is that "accident" assumes no intent or reckless behavior. Crash and wreck just describe what happened.
There's a reason that accident was injected into our vocabulary. That reason is that we generally accept that accidents happen in society. We don't accept crashes or wrecks. If a lot of car crashes are happening and society doesn't accept them, you better figure out a way to re-categorize them.
An accident. Accidents can occur from reckless or negligent behavior. That is not the same as intentionally hitting another car and the legal concept of “criminal negligence”[1] covers this exact distinction.
> Most crimes involve intentional conduct. For example, in some states, the offense of assault can be committed by the defendant intentionally using or attempting to use force against someone, as with a punch or kick…some crimes involve reckless or negligent, rather than intentional, conduct. The term "reckless" essentially describes a defendant's simultaneous understanding and disregard of a substantial risk of harm. An example is a defendant having previous DUI convictions and understanding that driving drunk can harm or kill people, but nevertheless getting behind the wheel while intoxicated and causing a fatal accident.
So in both a legal and common sense understanding of intentionality, it clearly is not.
> And why is it that everyone here is defending using the term "accident" by suggesting that car crash or wreck is not a correct description?
No one is saying crash or wreck are not also accurate. If you want to call it a crash, go right ahead, but you are objectively wrong to say that me calling it an accident is not a correct description.
> In drunk driving for example, you intently operated the vehicle impaired and caused a crash. If you drive over the speed limit you are intently operating the vehicle recklessly. We do on occasion use the term vehicular homicide when describing these actions...My point of contention is that "accident" assumes no intent or reckless behavior.
Once again, you are confusing intentional recklessness and intentional outcome. “Vehicular homicide, also known as vehicular manslaughter, is the reckless or negligent killing of another through the use of a vehicle.” [3] The resulting accident is still unintentional by both legal and common sense standards. The word “accident” does not assume no reckless behavior, and it does not assume that there were no intentional decisions that contributed to it.
[1] https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/what-criminal-neglig...
[2] https://www.justia.com/criminal/offenses/homicide/vehicular-...
[3] https://www.justia.com/criminal/offenses/homicide/vehicular-...
I’m not sure why intention matters in calling a car crash or wreck exactly that instead of an accident. When an airliner goes down we don’t call it an accident. Midair collision, plane crash, etc.
When planes flew into the WTC was that an aviation accident? Do you see how the terms used change this?
“Car accident” implies a normal state of behavior and softens and normalizes what is a pretty crazy thing to happen. Calling it a wreck or crash doesn’t imply any sort of culpability, yet denormalizes these interactions.
If someone willfully ignored ATC in a plane and crashed the plane would you call that an accident? No? Why do we not say the same when someone drives a car over the speed limit and crashes it? Why is that an accident but plane crashes aren’t?
If you take a step back it’s easy to see society has been modified to think of car crashes differently.