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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29600 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 6, 2023

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We certainly use the word "accident" for plane crashes.

Ok, it does exist. I think "plane crash" is a far more common term than "aviation accident" whereas car accident is much more common than car crash. Google trends showed similar results.

The attempts to move away from "accident" as the term for accidents are basically political, either for the perhaps laudable purpose of getting people to take them more seriously to reduce them, or the less laudable purpose of stigmatizing drivers.

As far as I can tell, it's mostly lawyers (because insurance companies use the word "accident" to imply their client is not at fault, hey would you look at that) and people who study traffic safety and have found that a substantial portion of the population does think that most car crashes aren't preventable.

That the NY Times erroneously uses the formula "leaving the scene of an accident" for leaving the scene of an intentional act does not mean "accident" is not used correctly elsewhere; the actual statute the NY Times (VTL 600) is referring to is worded "leaving the scene of an incident".

I think it's more likely that they just defaulted to "car accident" because it's so ingrained that's what we call car crashes.

Pushing someone through accident or negligence or even recklessness is not battery; battery is an intentional act.

Speeding, tailgating, changing lanes without sufficient space, etc. are also typically intentional acts. I'm not a lawyer but a traffic violation resulting in death is literally the example of manslaughter on the wiki page. d

Speeding, tailgating, changing lanes without sufficient space, etc. are also typically intentional acts.

Intending to commit a traffic offense (which generally doesn't matter, as they are strict liability anyway) is not intent to do harm. There are cases where such intent transfers (as in the felony murder rule), but they are exceptions.

I'm not a lawyer but a traffic violation resulting in death is literally the example of manslaughter on the wiki page.

Wikipedia is not a reliable source. In this case Wikipedia cites a case called "DPP v. Newbury" in support of the claim that failing to stop for a traffic light and hitting a pedestrian is manslaughter. First of all, this is an Australian case. Second, it does not concern a traffic accident but rather two boys who pushed a stone off a bridge as a train approached.

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