> Some street safety advocates have adopted the term "traffic violence" As the author found, the term most people use is "crash" instead of "accident". This c

> Some street safety advocates have adopted the term "traffic violence" As the author found, the term most people use is "crash" instead of "accident". This change started decades ago. I think the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration made the change in the 1990s. Part of the point of Vision Zero and similar projects is to point out the importance of good road planning and design. If there is a crash between two cars you shouldn't place the blame on one party and/or the other, but also on the people who designed a roadway and driver education system. If a driver crashes a car into a pedestrian walking along the side of the road because there is no sidewalk, the increased risk of the crash is entirely predictable. Calling it an "accident" absolves the road designers of any responsibility. This holds even if the driver of a car ends up in the ditch - was the road designed to encourage people to drive too fast? Were the wrong safety barriers used? This analysis has nothing to do with violence.