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Big brother is driving you

Skylarking

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An accident is defined by intent
Bollocks... No one intends to run into another vehicle on a road or at an intersection...

Carelessness, lack of attentiveness or stupidity does not equate to intent.

Intent is a purposeful and mindful act which is a rather difficult thing to prove in court. Carelesness, lack of attentiveness or stupidity are a much easier think to prove. And that's why when a crash occurs and someone dies, the driver isn't charged with the much more serious crime of murder (where intent defines it as a crime above manslaughter and way above driving causing death). They are charged with driving causing death which has no element of intent required for conviction...

In any case, Ralph Nada's point was simple, calling a car crash a car accident implies acts outide the drivers control, thus it's not his responsability when an accident occured. He felt a much driver ownership of the situation was required which is why he called it a crash...

He also fought his working life to make products safer and improve business behaviours. As a result he suffered through personal attacks and strong opposition at every turn so some indigration on his part is probably warranted.

His activism has been directly credited with the passage of several landmark pieces of American consumer protection legislation including the Clean Water Act, the Freedom of Information Act, the Consumer Product Safety Act, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the Whistleblower Protection Act, and the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act. In 1990, he was voted the "100 Most Influential Americans of the 20th century" by Life magazine.
 

Pollushon

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Bollocks... No one intends to run into another vehicle on a road or at an intersection...

Carelessness, lack of attentiveness or stupidity does not equate to intent.

Intent is a purposeful and mindful act which is a rather difficult thing to prove in court. Carelesness, lack of attentiveness or stupidity are a much easier think to prove. And that's why when a crash occurs and someone dies, the driver isn't charged with the much more serious crime of murder (where intent defines it as a crime above manslaughter and way above driving causing death). They are charged with driving causing death which has no element of intent required for conviction...

In any case, Ralph Nada's point was simple, calling a car crash a car accident implies acts outide the drivers control, thus it's not his responsability when an accident occured. He felt a much driver ownership of the situation was required which is why he called it a crash...

He also fought his working life to make products safer and improve business behaviours. As a result he suffered through personal attacks and strong opposition at every turn so some indigration on his part is probably warranted.

His activism has been directly credited with the passage of several landmark pieces of American consumer protection legislation including the Clean Water Act, the Freedom of Information Act, the Consumer Product Safety Act, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the Whistleblower Protection Act, and the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act. In 1990, he was voted the "100 Most Influential Americans of the 20th century" by Life magazine.

Take it up with the OED, Britannica or your local MP. Also note I tend to write with a satirical angle, I'm not sure anyone hates on Ralph and he has every right to be indignant, that's his job. Until such a time as he has the definition of the word altered I'll exercise my right stick with the standard, you can stick with whatever floats your boat, which actually seems to agree. Honestly I can't follow what you wrote in relation to my comment

I'll just leave this here for clarity:

Accident: an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury.
 
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Nitro_X

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The default limit they say is 112 mph....that's 180 kmh
Unlikely I'd ever need or want to drive that fast on public roads.
 

Skylarking

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... I tend to write with a satirical angle, I'm not sure anyone hates on Ralph and he has every right to be indignant, that's his job...

... Honestly I can't follow what you wrote in relation to my comment..

Accident: an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury.
Must have missed the satire :p and my post probably came across more harsh than intended :oops: But I thought it was clear that I didn’t agree with the definition that an accident is defined by intent... more so, it’s defined by a lack of intent as the definition you provides clarifies ;)

The definition also states
Accident
noun
1. an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury.
2. an event that happens by chance or that is without apparent or deliberate cause :rolleyes:

Again no element of intent within definition 2.

So like RN, I prefer to call it crash as it focuses the issues away from fortune and chance :p

crash
verb
1. (of a vehicle) collide violently with an obstacle or another vehicle.
2. move or cause to move with force, speed, and sudden loud noise.
noun
1. a violent collision, typically of one vehicle with another or with an object.
2. a sudden loud noise as of something breaking or hitting another object.

Language influences behaviour and the term accident implies causes outside drivers control so many drivers feel blameless even though the courts find differently... Ralph’s point seems to be change the language and you have some hope to change the behaviour...

Doubt OED would disagree as they have all bases covered :cool:
 
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Pollushon

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So yeah. A crash and an incident can be deliberate. An accident by definition cannot. It is defined by intent, like I said
 

Skylarking

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don't most Fords already have a much more aggressive governor built in from the factory? :D
Most cars have a governor of sorts... some call it gutless engines :p:p:p
 

Skylarking

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So yeah. A crash and an incident can be deliberate. An accident by definition cannot. It is defined by intent, like I said
The definition of crash is agnostic towards a drivers intent and whether it is deliberate or not whereas the definition for accident calls it something unintentional and/or without deliberate cause (which for many people implies a lack fault)...

That’s RN’s point, that any vehicular collision should be called a crash since we as a society should break away from looking at these incidence as a random unintentional chance event. Rather, such events should be seem as a consequence of choice (not only drivers choice but vehicle and road infrastructure design)...

In my mind, the fact prosecutors and then courts only look at intent, if warranted in relation to the charges brought before them, leaves a lot to be desired. For example, some idiot doing burnouts within a crowd of other idiots watching in close proximity shouldn't be seen as having an accident when the inevitable occurs and someone is seriously injured or killed. The driver‘s intent was to take risks and as such should be charged with something much more serious than “driving causing serious injury” (5 years max) or ”driver causing death” (10 years max) which seems currently the case. Neither of there charges consider intent (which is the point)...

Drivers need to be woken up as I don't think they really understand their legal obligations when behind the wheel (else no one would use a mobile phone while driving). A change of language and stronger enforcement will help a change of mindset.
 

Wats_in_a_name

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Bollocks... No one intends to run into another vehicle on a road or at an intersection...

Carelessness, lack of attentiveness or stupidity does not equate to intent.

Intent is a purposeful and mindful act which is a rather difficult thing to prove in court. Carelesness, lack of attentiveness or stupidity are a much easier think to prove. And that's why when a crash occurs and someone dies, the driver isn't charged with the much more serious crime of murder (where intent defines it as a crime above manslaughter and way above driving causing death). They are charged with driving causing death which has no element of intent required for conviction...

In any case, Ralph Nada's point was simple, calling a car crash a car accident implies acts outide the drivers control, thus it's not his responsability when an accident occured. He felt a much driver ownership of the situation was required which is why he called it a crash...

He also fought his working life to make products safer and improve business behaviours. As a result he suffered through personal attacks and strong opposition at every turn so some indigration on his part is probably warranted.

His activism has been directly credited with the passage of several landmark pieces of American consumer protection legislation including the Clean Water Act, the Freedom of Information Act, the Consumer Product Safety Act, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the Whistleblower Protection Act, and the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act. In 1990, he was voted the "100 Most Influential Americans of the 20th century" by Life magazine.
Ralph Nader also made a big deal out of cars such as the Chevrolet Corvair being a hazard on the road whilst ignoring similar records of cars like the Volkswagon Beetle. General Motors made the situation worse for themselves by amateur efforts to spy on him rather than attack his arguments on the basis of facts. For what it's worth the Corvair was later cleared by a US Congress inquiry.
 

Skylarking

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Ralph Nader also made a big deal out of cars such as the Chevrolet Corvair being a hazard on the road whilst ignoring similar records of cars like the Volkswagon Beetle. General Motors made the situation worse for themselves by amateur efforts to spy on him rather than attack his arguments on the basis of facts. For what it's worth the Corvair was later cleared by a US Congress inquiry.
Yeah, Nader and others were scathing in their assessment of GM's first gen Corvair...

The swing arm design was less than ideal but when combined with the heavier van and wagon body of some Corvair models as the weight made things worse as compared to the VW/Porche (which I thought had anti-sway bars fitted as standard, but not sure on that). Interestingly, the GM engineers wanted a front anti-sway bar which would have ameliorated the car's handling shortcomings but management scuttled that idea...

And to me, the fact the design is ****, doesn't make it any less **** just because other manufacturers are selling similar... The fact the regulators cleared the product as safe because it was not worse than comparative products also says lots about where their heads were at and doesn't really prove a the thing was safe, only that regulatory capture is a real... In any case what did they test, the smallest lightest Corvair against the VW? or did they test a Corvair van or station wagon?

Guess what Nader was also fighting was the lax regulations around faulty and unsafe products. So it's not surprising the regulators didn't really see a problem and cleared the Corvair, and by implication the **** swing axle designs of VW/Porche, MB and Tatra ... The stuff the aviation regulator have accepted and allowed the industry to get away with would make you thing twice about flying and make motor vehicle regulators seem like amateurs...

In any case, later 65 Corvair moved away from swing axle designs and incorporated a fully independent rear but the reputational damage was done and it never recovered. The model fizzled away by 1969...

As for GM, there were no facts that they could use to counter Nader's criticisms as their own engineers wanted an anti-roll bar to reduce oversteer issues... So they resorted to a bunch of other less than ethical things including spying on him (to find the whistle blower) which didn't help them and probably why Nader was an advocate for whistle blower protections...

Oh, and me, I wouldn't put much faith in the lower house or Congress, back then and especially now. Those current clowns have demostrated an inability to impeach a President who was actively pushing for insurrection :eek: They are a crash waiting to happen :p:p
 
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