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With proper road design, traffic fatalities can be reduced to a negligible rate. Oslo famously achieved zero per year. Since roads can be designed with this deg
by _dain_ 3y ago
With proper road design, traffic fatalities can be reduced to a negligible rate. Oslo famously achieved zero per year. Since roads can be designed with this degree of safety, it follows that high rates of fatalities are a result of poor road design, and hence not unforeseeable accidents.
"Accident" is actually softening language -- it diminishes the agency of the driver, and the designer of the road. "Traffic collision" describes what happened, and does not presume that nobody is to blame.
The "car" part of "car accident" is also softening: nobody is "hit by a car", they are hit by a motorist.
- trgn 3y agoYep, "hit by a car" is the perfect example of fetishization, the attribution of agency to inanimate objects. Note to that it will be the cyclist that will hit the old lady, never the bicycle. The bicycle, even though as old as the car, has resisted this fetishization. It's really curious, which objects cast the spell, and which don't.
- rootusrootus 3y agoI've definitely heard people talk about getting hit by bikes. I think the distinction, to the extent it exists, might have a lot to do with what constitutes the majority of mass. If you get hit by an 18 pound bike with a 160 pound rider, you really got hit more by the rider than the bike. But if you get hit by a 3000 pound car with a 160 pound driver, you definitely got hit more by the car than the driver. However, depending on ideological viewpoint, it might be tempting to read more into the language.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- DangitBobby 3y agoI didn't say it wasn't softening at all, I'm pushing back against the ridiculous assertion that they aren't accidents.