ac-cident more or less literally means crash or collaps, cado "to fall", and might be akin to catastrophe, kata "down". ad- (assimilated ac-) might mean frontal

ac-cident more or less literally means crash or collaps, cado "to fall", and might be akin to catastrophe, kata "down". ad- (assimilated ac-) might mean frontal, approximately, or compare to ago "go, drive" (voiceless e. g. in act). It's also pretty pretty close to, what's a good example, sui-cide, electro-cution, so we might refer to car-cide or ac-cide, i.e. death by driving, with some poetic license. It's not a coincident, where the stress lies on in, for an hinest one-time case. Also cp. case, casus by the way, from the same root. It is rather formulaic, which is however reasonable if it should cover even the most minor cases. The fact that accidental could come to mean by chance, involuntary was probably due to the consequences being a bigger worry than the causes, in most cases. Legalese has developed a more fine grained scale of responsibility, leaving room for doubt between dolus eventualis, dolus directus 1 and 2 and in contradistion so called negligentia, luxuria and culpa latis all of which should be nevertheless culpable, in theory. However it is not always clear who to blame. Certainly not the wording, is it?