Talk:Traffic collision

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World Wide View

DemonBarberTodd commented, "Too many refrences to statistics of the U.S. Like most people who use wikipedia I am not an American."

I suggest that the problem is not too many U.S. statistics, but not enough from other parts of the world. Please add statistics from representative countries or regions around the world. I think there were recent reports from the UN and OECD that might have relevant information in them. --Triskele Jim (talk) 16:39, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Article title

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was move to Traffic collision. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 10:08, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
There have been several discussions in the past few years regarding this article's title — as can be seen by [title|reviewing them], preponderance of opinion has been to change the title to something along the lines of Motor vehicle collision or Traffic collision or Vehicle collision or something else that does not involve the word "accident". I believe we must make this change to bring the article title in line with Wikipedia's requirement for adherence to the neutral point of view.

Past discussions have narrowly missed consensus by getting sidetracked in quibbles over whether "accident" or "collision" is the more common term, but that's really not the relevant question. Both terms have currency and most any English speaker knows they refer to the same kind of event. The critical key difference is that collision is a neutral term — it means two or more objects striking each other, regardless of the cause, blame, or intent of whoever might've been in control of whatever objects collide. "Accident" is not a neutral term, for it denotes an unintentional and/or unpredictable and/or inadvertent collision. Some collisions are unintentional, unpredictable, and/or inadvertent, but some are not. So, all accidents relevant to this article are collisions, but not all collisions are accidents. Therefore, collision — and not "accident" — is the noun we need in this article's title. As for the rest of the title, as has been mentioned in past discussion, we'd best not restrict it to cars or even to motor vehicles (think of horses and bicycles and streetcars and buses and other vehicles found in traffic). So, I cast the first !vote:

• Change article title to Traffic collision. —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C06:26, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
• Change name. The first word really has to change to be inclusive or trucks, buses, etc.. I'd prefer vehicle over traffic and, because collision implies an impact between 2 moving objects, I'd prefer the word crash over collision but would support a change to any combination of vehicle or traffic and crash or collision over the current title because it really is not appropriate. --Athol Mullen (talk) 13:19, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Further, I'd be fine with the above being prefixed with road or motor, with a leaning towards road as being more prescriptive. I'd prefer to keep it at short and concise as possible, though. --Athol Mullen (talk) 10:57, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
• Change article name, leaning towards motor vehicle collision. Car is certainly not inclusive enough. I think I prefer motor vehicle or vehicle over traffic, as traffic seems to imply more than one car. Collision also seems more appropriate over crash. As Athol said, any variation of the above would be fine.-- MacAddct1984 ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:27, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
• Change name. The first word should specify the mode(s) covered by the article. "Motor vehicle" could span multiple modes, but is generally considered to address rubber-tired vehicles (trucks, cars, motorcycles, etc.), but it could dismiss pedestrians & bicyclists. My more critical concern is with the use of "accident" -- I'd say that "crash" or "collision" is a vastly superior phrasing. Cheers! --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 19:54, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
• Change name. The current term used in the medical literature is Motor vehicular collision --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:16, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
• Change the title. I think the word "accident" needs to be avoided as non neutral. I also think that the word "motor" needs to be avoided as these events can occur without motor vehicle involvement; between a bicycle and a pedestrian for example. My preference is for Road traffic collision or Road traffic crash. -- de Facto (talk). 20:15, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Okeh, what title?

We appear to have good, strong consensus for a title change to eliminate the word "accident". Now let's see about selecting a new title. I favour Traffic collision and would like to get some discussion going by addressing some of the questions and comments above. Merriam-Webster defines Traffic as (...) the movement (as of vehicles or pedestrians) through an area or along a route; the vehicles, pedestrians, ships, or planes moving along a route (...). So I don't think we need to worry about the suitability of the word "traffic". As for collision, the same dictionary says collide means (...) to come together with solid or direct impact <the car collided with a tree> (...). There is always a collision of some kind involved with the kind of incident this article describes. It might be two or more cars colliding, it might be a car hitting a bicyclist or a pedestrian or a tree or the ground or the side of a mountain. It might be a bicyclist running into a pedestrian, or into a truck. It might be two pedestrians running into each other on the sidewalk because they're both engrossed in urgent text messaging. I really don't think there's a motor-vehicle-only connotation to "collision", and I think it is the more basic, proper term. "Crash" is somewhat more colloquial. Certainly everyone understands what it means, but the same is true of the present word ("accident") and we all seem to agree that one's gotta go. Finally, I don't think we need to prepend road to the title; see the definition of traffic cited above. So here again, I cast the first !vote:

• Support Traffic collision —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C16:34, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

At least some legal definitions of traffic are broader still. The Vehicle and Traffic Law of New York defines it as, "Pedestrians, ridden or herded animals, vehicles, bicycles, and other conveyances either singly or together while using any highway for purposes of travel."

• Support Traffic collision --Triskele Jim (talk) 16:58, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support Traffic collision -- MacAddct1984 ^{(talk &#149; contribs)} 23:16, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support Traffic collision -- Born2cycle (talk) 01:48, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

• I'm agnostic about the title but I want to point out that not all car accidents involve collisions. — AjaxSmack 03:16, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
  • I'll bite: may we have an example, please of a car accident (defined as for an article such as this) that involves no collision? —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C03:43, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

My NYS Police Accident Report decoder lists the following under "No Collision":

• Overturned
• Fire/Explosion
• Submersion
• Ran Off Roadway Only
• Other

Perhaps also passengers falling inside a bus?--Triskele Jim (talk) 16:19, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Okeh, I can see that, though some of them are definitely debatable (overturned = wrong part of vehicle collides with ground, submersion = vehicle hits water, run-off-road = vehicle hits ground that is not part of the road). I don't think passengers falling inside a bus would be within the scope of this article no matter what we might call it. —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C21:04, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking about that. I think that category is used if a vehicle overturns due to excessive lateral acceleration, not due to hitting something else first, and the "ran-off-road only" category is used if a vehicle goes off into a fairly flat field without hitting a ditch, tree, or some other object. A police report may still be filed if someone's lawn gets torn up, or if the driver gets cited for alcohol. Submersion at any speed would still be an impact, but perhaps not if it just rolled down a gentle hill into the water, or, as sometimes happens around here, ice fishermen drive out onto the ice, which breaks under the weight of the vehicle.--Triskele Jim (talk) 18:41, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

• Propose Road traffic collision. As described above by Scheinwerfermann, the word "traffic" is also used in the context of ships and planes. If we don't qualify it as "road traffic" we can expect to see sections on "air traffic" collisions and "water traffic" collisions appearing. -- de Facto (talk). 09:22, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

• • That is a good point, and I would not necessarily be opposed, though this would not be problem-free: trains are only found on roads they cross, for example. I wonder if the best way to solve this might be to use Traffic collision as the title and place at the top This article is about ground vehicle crashes. For aircraft collisions, see article1. For watercraft collisions, see article2 or just a dab page link. —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C21:04, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

• OK, you've convinced me, I'll go with Traffic collision. -- de Facto (talk). 22:03, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

• • I think it's safe to assume that most English speakers will already interpret "traffic collision" to mean "road traffic collision" and not "air traffic collision" or "water traffic collision". Rarely if ever is "traffic" used in those contexts without the "air" or "water" qualifier. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:47, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Would prefer Motor vehicle collision

• Support Motor vehicle collision --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:35, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

• See above. "Motor vehicle collision" does not adequately represent the full scope of the article. Bicycles are not motor vehicles, and neither are pedestrians. —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C05:37, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

• Sanity check - WP isn't about finding consensus opinions on what editors would like to see - its about being encyclopaedic about what is used out there in the real world. So choose something which is either officially correct or the most common term. A lot of the professions use the term "accident". (Its preposterous to read into the term any ulterior motive.) The main UK bodies officially uses the term "Road accident" eg the Standing Committee on Road Accident Statistics in its STATS19 accident reporting process[1], while many USA authorities like "motor vehicle accidents" (NY has its MV-104 accident report forms[2] and CA has its "Traffic Accident Report"[3].) Almost uniquely, Australian authorities use the term "road crash". If we were to look at what is a popular tem, then a quick google search on "Road Traffic Accident" returns about 285,000 hits, on "road collision" about 28,000 hits. "motor vehicle accident" scores 686,000, while "automobile accident" comes to about 1.2m but would be undesirable because it is not a globally-accepted English term. "Car accident" tops them all at 10.3M hits. You will see that most names are already redirected here. Ephebi (talk) 23:16, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Not quite. Google hit counts can be useful in paring down the list of candidate titles for an article, but they're by no means a standard by which we select article titles. It's instructive to review the title discussion for Headlamp — despite "headlights" returning more Google hits than "headlamps", and both terms being in very common use, the latter term (headlamps) is technically more correct. Likewise, "the bends" gives many more Google hits than "decompression sickness", but our article is called Decompression sickness for the same reason. You're right that an article's title is not to be decided by a popularity contest on Wikipedia — that's not what the consensus process is meant to be — but neither is it to be decided by a popularity contest on Google. You're also right that some jurisdictions and organisations use "accident" in some of their official language, but many jurisdictions and organisations use "collision". See here (pdf), here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here for just a small sample of North American jurisdictions and organisations officially using collision, and here's just one of many U.K. examples of the same. Please review the coverage in this present article over the philosophical discussion in the traffic safety research community at large over this very question of terminology. Given the formal discourse on the subject, it is apparent that neither the question nor the implications of nomenclature is considered "preposterous", though you personally may think it so. Neither "I like it" nor "I don't like it" is a sound basis for an opinion in a discussion such as this one. Please also keep in mind that the existence of redirects to the article's present title does not imply that the present title is the optimal one — to make that suggestion is circular (the present title's best because it's the present title). Article titles are optimised routinely on Wikipedia, and redirects are adjusted to match. —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C00:03, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

• The examples I gave to you (where they use the term "accident") were from some of the leading authorities in road safety policy (that is not to dismiss your other examples, but I do not believe that most US county police forces, or Kentucky, such are you quoted are at the forefront of the road safety agenda while the major US auto states - CA, TX etc use 'accident') This discussion appears in WP every year and is a huge diversion of editors' efforts, IMHO (which I why I have kept out of until now). If you re-read the archives of this thread all of these issues and many more have been raised (the link at the top here refers to only one of the more recent and IMHO, lightweight, discussions). The point I am making is that you need to work out what the principle should be for naming; is it popularity, mainstream technical acceptability, journalistic currency, pressure groups, or some other criteria, weighted for internal use? There are a few other editors in WP who have some professional experience in transportation & road design, as I have; their experience could be sought to give you a more definitive picture, rather than a random collection of opinions (that is not to dismiss the lay view, but I don't see how you are going to arrive at an encyclopaedic result by following the process above). Ephebi (talk) 08:00, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

• It is growing difficult to assume good faith on your part; it looks as if you might be placing goalposts arbitrarily and then moving them when they are shown not to be germane to the present discussion. I certainly hope that is not your intent. I have shown that collision has currency in regulations and laws within and outside North America. You want top authorities? Fine, go search the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and you'll find more use of collision than of accident. But even though the evidence supports the change for which we have consensus (which, keep in mind, does not require unanimity, this is irrelevant, for the root issue here isn't which term is more commonly used. It's the problem that "accident" is not a neutral term, and collision is. You seem to have trouble with the notion that "accident" connotes fault — you've said you find that notion "preposterous", and it's certainly your right to hold that opinion, but the well documented, robustly supported fact is that "accident" has connotations of fault. On that basis, I have shown — and there is wide agreement — that "accident" is not an acceptable noun for the title of this article. Your continued tendentiousness on this matter still looks like "it shouldn't change because Ephebi likes it the way it is". —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C08:25, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to move forward

I haven't commented on the proposal to change the title to traffic collision until now. It is within the range of options that I said that I considered acceptable, but is the one I like the least. Given that there is consensus to change the title, and that is the leading candidate, I propose that the article be immediately moved to that name even if further discussion results in it moving to something else in the future. Leaving the article at the untenable title of car accident while discussing the new name is not productive. If we move to traffic collision now, this discussion may well peter out due to lack of interest, which would be productive. --Athol Mullen (talk) 05:30, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

• Support — If a more suitable title than traffic collision comes to light as the article evolves and improves and once the present quibbling is past, there's nothing stopping us changing it again. Redirects make such changes transparent and nondisruptive. —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C06:13, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose - we don't rename contentuious things in WP just to get a reaction - there will only be another request to change the name again in a year's time. Whatever gets agreed here should be precied and kept on the page and not archived. Ephebi (talk) 08:00, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

• Remember, we don't use crystal balls here on Wikipedia. There've been several discussions about the name of this article in the past, and as long as it remains "car accident", that will likely continue because the current title does not accord with Wikipedia's requirement for neutrality. Perhaps once we change to a neutral title, the periodic discussion of this article's title will come less often or not at all. —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C08:25, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Legailty

It is stated that it is an offence to drive away from an accident without swapping details.

This is untrue. It is merely a guideline that details are swapped. If they are not swapped, it is a requirement that the matter be reported to the police within 24 hours. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.3.161.77 (talk) 06:24, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

When talking about legality, you must remember that laws vary depending on where you live, the section header has a disclaimer regarding this. If you are referring to the UK laws specifically, if you can find a citation better than the one that appears in the article, you can change it. -- MacAddct1984 ^{(talk &#149; contribs)} 16:22, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Car Collision*

An accident implies that there is nobody at fault. 99% of the time people make the conscious decision to let their guard down causing them to collide.--GnarlyLikeWhoa (talk) 03:50, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

The word "accident" does not imply nobody is at fault; it implies the event was unexpected, unpredictable or inadvertent.

There is a fundamental semantic and educational importance to this. There has been considerable debate around the question of whether accident or collision/crash are more appropriate terms, which hinges around the idea of whether someone has a crash as a result of a deliberate act or as a result of an unexpected event. The argument for using crash or collision, more or less returns to the point that blame is apportioned for the latter terms, and should be as most crashes are the result of a human error.

The implication is that people "deliberately" have accidents by not taking care or driving irresponsibly.

There is ample evidence that this is not the case. The vast majority of drivers believe they are driving carefully and safely most of the time. This means that using an expression that implies blame for unsafe driving means that they believe it doesn't apply to them, as they think they are not in the wrong.

The principle that "accidents are something that can happen to anybody" therefore makes "accident" a far more useful term, since it addresses every driver as someone in the risk group, not just those who perceive themselves to be driving dangerously or carelessly. Almost nobody has a crash deliberately.

A key challenge for driver safety and education is to increase understanding that collisions can happen unpredictably to anyone at any time (ie accidentally). The biggest causes of vehicle crashes are distraction and loss of concentration - these are not deliberate or malicious acts. They are acts of omission. The greatest reduction of collisions would be achieved by drivers developing the habit of increased vigilance and concentration on driving. This requires heightened awareness of possible unexpected (accidental) events and conscious preparation for these. Diverting the focus to the idea of blame for irresponsible driving is counterproductive, as it only communicates to people who perceive themselves to be driving irresponsibly. Most people don't. The idea of accidents being something that can happen unexpectedly to anyone,is a message that communicates to everyone, however good a driver they think they are. This should be the emphasis on semantic, educational and public health grounds. On this basis Accident is a far more appropriate and useful word.

Andrew Catlin (talk) 09:01, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I think you are missing the point. Accident has a connotation of an unpredictable, unpreventable event, and road agencies can't really do much to reduce the number of crashes on their roads. To the contrary, there are engineering measures that can be used to reduce the probability of crashes occurring at a given site. For example, Mendocino County cut traffic crashes on their roads by 42%, mostly by upgrading traffic signs. (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/publicroads/05jan/08.cfm)

While it is true that most crashes have at least one human factor involved, it is a mistake to think that means nothing can be done. What causes driver error (or walker error, bicyclist error, etc)? Often, it's road geometry or some other environmental issue.

As statistical methods get better, we can predict what locations will experience high crash rates, and whether a change in crashes at a location is a problem, or a random fluctuation. Using terminology that makes highway departments think they can't do anything about road safety is counterproductive.--Triskele Jim (talk) 19:36, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I think you are also missing the point. Highway departments are under no illusions about whether they can make infrastructure changes to reduce accident rates, and there are legally required reactive procedures to KSI accidents in many countries that require them to implement engineering measures following such incidents. The statistics are unequivocal; whether the word accident or collision is used in this context becomes immaterial. It is in the context of public and educational use that it becomes critical. We don't need to make highway departments understand the problem - they already have a better understanding than most.

The biggest issue for road safety is driver behaviour. Most people believe they are good drivers and drive safely. They drive under the impression that they are safe, because they believe they are driving safely.

There is growing understanding that driver education is now key to reducing road casualties. The Austrian Post Test phase has reduced novice driver casualties by over 30% since introduction, and in Sweden changes to driver education reduced casualties in this group by 40%. New drivers are the crucial group to aim for, as they are by far highest risk and represent the best investment, as successful measures will be active for the rest of their lifespan.

Novice drivers are in the period of their development when they are least risk averse. An essential educational requirement is to heighten their risk awareness and promote active vigilance. The idea that an accident may happen at any time, however well you drive - and may equally be the result of the fault of another driver - is important. The idea that you have the power to anticipate and avoid many accident situations is important. That this is a matter of active control, rather than passive "good behaviour".

In this sense, accident has a more correct meaning. However, ultimately it is irrelevant, as words change their meaning according to useage, and whichever word is used, people attach their own meanings to words that are as much determined by the context as the precise word used. More important is clarity on the message, and whether we are trying to communicate with "bad drivers" or "all drivers". If you speak to the former, most people aren't listening, because they believe they are good drivers. "Bad drivers" have more accidents, but most accidents happen to people who think they are driving safely.

Andrew Catlin (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 10:48, 28 January 2012 (UTC).

References

Added new report from a survey that studied the causes of car crash due to usage of mobile devices.Rim sim (talk) 08:29, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Which car brand?

thumb|left

File:MIU Crash 1.jpg

Citroen or Toyota?

This image has the description "Citroen c4, 1 student died in this car crash in Egypt, on the Cairo-Ismailia road, Misr International University" while its caption in the article is "Toyota Corolla Crash in Cairo, Egypt".

Please someone familiar with the Citroen or Toyota models identify this battered car. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 09:51, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

You don't have to be familiar with the specific vehicle models to recognise the Citroen badge on the middle of the top of the tappet cover, so confirming the brand took about 1 second after loading the full size photo. I also agree that it's a C4. If you look closely, the top of the bumper bar has a silver piece with a peak right on the edge of the photo, which is consistent with the upward point in the bottom of the grille of a C4, the raised section in the middle of the dashboard matches and the shape of the window frame on the back door matches. --Athol Mullen (talk) 12:30, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Looks like it was a rollover?--Triskele Jim (talk) 17:15, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Or perhaps it was rolled over! —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C18:42, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

LOL. Irrespective, I think that the 2 photos here of the same model of car in the same colour before and after a crash make an interesting comparison, although it probably wouldn't be worth putting in an article. --Athol Mullen (talk) 03:37, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Images

What this page needs is not more images of motor vehicle collisions but charts and graphs of trends in MVCs. All but one of two of the car crashes can than been moved to a gallery at the bottom of the page.

1. A map comparing rates in different countries.
2. A comparison of rates of MCVs verses blood alcohol levels. http://www.erso.eu/knowledge/content/20_speed/speed_and_accident_risk.htm
3. A comparison of rates of MCVs verses speed driven. http://www.erso.eu/knowledge/content/20_speed/speed_and_accident_risk.htm
4. How rates have changed in different countries.
5. A graphical presentation of what percentage leads to death versus other outcomes.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:44, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

History

Death from falling from a horse is not a traffic collision death.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:51, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

If it happened on a road, it would be a traffic death, since the legal definition of traffic includes riden animals. You're correct about it not being a collision death, unless a collision caused the fall.--Triskele Jim (talk) 18:32, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Off road deaths

In many part of the world off road death are counted as deaths from motor vehicular collisions / traffic accidents. If one drives off the road and dies it is still a MVC death. As we have discussed above none of these terms are perfect.

Most people do not however count death that do not involve a motor vehical. Thus if one is traveling by say walking / climbing / kayaking / horse back and dies without the involvement of a motor vehicle it does not count as a MVC related death.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:07, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

The more I look into it it seems everyone uses slightly different terms, definition, etc. Makes it hard to create a global overview.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:44, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Plagiarism

Large part of this seems to have been either plagiarized by http://www.miloslawllc.com/personal_injury.php and http://ownageville.com/Legal_consequences.html or plagiarized by us.

"Car collisions usually carry legal consequences in proportion to the severity of the crash. Nearly all common law jurisdictions impose some kind of requirement that parties involved in a collision (even with only stationary property) must stop at the scene, and exchange insurance or identification information or summon the police. In the UK it is a criminal offence to leave the scene of an accident without swapping details with the owner of the car or property or even to anyone else who asks for it. Failing to obey this requirement is referred to as hit and run and is generally a criminal offence. However, most claims are settled without recourse to law. In this case, assuming that both parties carry adequate insurance, the claim is often handled between the two insurers. There may be financial penalties involved, such as an excess or deductible payment and a loss of a no-claims bonus or higher future premiums.

Depending upon the circumstances, parties involved in an incident may face criminal liability, civil liability, or both. Usually, the state starts a criminal prosecution only if someone is severely injured or killed, or if one of the drivers involved was acting illegally or clearly grossly negligent or intoxicated or otherwise impaired at the time the accident occurred. Criminal charges might include driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, driving without due care (UK), assault with a deadly weapon (USA), manslaughter, or murder; penalties range from fines to jail time (USA) to prison time to death (where applicable). It is notable that the penalties for killing and injuring with motor vehicles are often very much less than for other actions with similar outcomes.

As for civil liability, in places where healthcare is mainly provided through private insurance, such as the USA, automobile accident personal injury lawsuits have become the most common type of tort. Because of pre-existing case law, the courts usually need to decide only the factual questions of who is at fault, and their percentage of fault, as well as how much must be paid out in damages to the injured plaintiff by the defendant's insurer.

For lesser offences civil action may result in fines or collecting points that invalidate the driver's licence, through a central government agency. Such complaints may be filed by a police officer, by other witnesses of an incident, or through remote enforcement such as CCTV or speed cameras. Some jurisdictions (notably US states) directly administer fines or suspend licenses imposed by civil or criminal authorities when a driver has violated the rules of the road and thus the terms of a driver's license. In some jurisdictions such administrative penalties may be imposed through quasi-criminal infractions; other jurisdictions do not recognize infractions and charge all violations, at a minimum, as misdemeanours or felonies.

Some argue that the effect of a loss or injury due to a crash can be equivalent to that of a victim of crime under criminal law. Several campaigning organisations that provide support mechanisms also seek out an equivalent status within their jurisdictions or draw attention to particular road safety issues and attitudes with the intention of introducing law reform (e.g. MADD)."

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:37, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

References

Co tracts

This whole area contains a massive number of co tracts containing snippets of related information. Will try to address some of it. It does not help that every country uses a different term to describe MVCs.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:04, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Cellphones

Needs section on cellphones.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:10, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Why?Pudding30 (talk)

something to add to popular culture

I think the movie death proof by quentin tarantino should be added because the plot is similar to the other books/films listed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.179.178.64 (talk) 01:39, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Why does "vehicle accident" redirect here?

"Vehicle" includes boats and airplanes, which also (unfortunately) have accidents (in which people are injured and killed) so why do we have a redirect to this article, with its relatively narrow focus? I propose that either this article be expanded to acknowledge that vehicles besides cars are involved in (serious, life-threatening) accidents, or else we create a new article covering the actual, full range of vehicle accidents.--TyrS (talk) 04:04, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Makes sense, though "accident" isn't a word you want to use as it already implies an interpretation on the cause "oh, an accident". This is why Road Traffic Collision is the current acronym used by many police and related services to an event involving one or more vehicles. Maybe Vehicle accident should redirect to this page, Airplane Crash, something for boats, spacecraft, etc. SteveLoughran (talk) 15:55, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Language

Wtf is a milliard? I would fix it but I don't actually know what is intended here. Is it million or billion? 213.155.151.233 (talk) 15:50, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I have no idea, but to help others find it and hopefully explain, it's in the final column heading in this table. Hope this helps. HiLo48 (talk) 22:16, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

According to Names of large numbers, 1 milliard = 10⁹ = 1 billion in modern US and UK usage, but 1 billion = 10¹² in India and most European countries.--Triskele Jim (talk) 17:24, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Pedestrians, push bikes, animals and falling trees.

Is it intentional that these subjects are not considered in the Article?Ppeetteerr (talk) 11:44, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Pretty sure it's not intentional. Please feel free to add relevant content referenced to reliable sources. HiLo48 (talk) 11:48, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I thought of that but the whole structure of the article is based on car crashes (even though the title has been changed) with a nod or two to motor bikes, so it is difficult to see where the contributions of pedestrians, push bikes and falling trees (ie acts of god) fit in.Ppeetteerr (talk) 12:10, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

OK, thinking more - a possible approach would be a higher level article such as "Dangers of Travelling" which could deal with all forms of travel putting them in relative context and then allow a selection to go to e.g. Air, Rail, Sea, Road, Other. Then the road one could branch to e.g. Motor Vehicles, Pedestrians, Natural Events etc, the Motor Vehicles one could then branch to the current article, Freight, Coach Travel etc. I see some benefit in applying the same structure to the Diabetes articles (at least), where a high level one could help to decide which of the existing articles is the one required. I haven't explored the whole of Wikipedia yet (joke) as I keep getting sidetracked by the links, but I expect there are other subject areas that could benefit from such a hierarchical approach - how would this sit with other people? And would it be more useful to ask about in a more general forum than this particular article.Ppeetteerr (talk) 12:41, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Imprecise statement on correlations

"(a) The percentage of the total state highway mileage that is rural. (b) The percent increase in motor vehicle registration. (c) The extent of motor vehicle inspection. (d) The percentage of state-administered highway that is surfaced. (e) The average yearly minimum temperature. (f) The income per capita. " Do these have negative or positive correlations? Intuitively, I would guess that some are neg and some pos. 211.225.34.73 (talk) 02:29, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

"Driver Impairment"

As a young person myself, I have to take issue with the classification of age as a "driver impairment". While I will acknowledge that there is a higher incidence of collisions amongst the young and the elderly, "Driver Impairment" seems an inappropriate section to relay this information. As age is not, itself, a cause of car crash, I propose that the information in question be moved to the section "Epidemiology", as I feel that would be a more appropriate place to convey that information. Sherlockian87 (talk) 02:22, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Relative risk based on alcohol levels - replace picture

Hi. There is File:Relative_risk_of_an_accident_based_on_blood_alcohol_levels_.png now used in the text. I think we can replace it with much better (in terms of statistics and reliability) with this WHO picture: File:WHO_BAC_Relative_risk.png (More links and quotes are listed at file pages in Commons).

What is wrong with File:Relative_risk_of_an_accident_based_on_blood_alcohol_levels_.png? - it is based on single Australian study (page 54) (Adelaide) from 1997, which itself was taked from 1979-1980 paper (page 25) from Adelaide. In this paper there were 1500 drivers total; but most notable digit, 30% risk, is calculated only from 23 people.

On the other side, File:WHO_BAC_Relative_risk.png is part of WHO report World report on road traffic injury prevention from 2004; and data is taken from 4 different papers. It has more points along BAC axis, around 9; (there were only 6 groups in Adelaide statistics: "0; 0.01-0.03; 0.04-0.06; 0.07-0.09; 0.10-0.14; >0.15"). In WHO report there were 15000 drivers (Compton). Also from Compton (2002):

Also, the measurement of BAC level has improved greatly over the last 30+ years, statistical techniques have become much 
more sophisticated

`a5b (talk) 01:58, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

repture de la rate

Y at-il une greffe de la rate — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.1.181.116 (talk) 12:05, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

contradictory result

This is not strictly correct: "An RAC survey of British drivers found that most thought they were better than average drivers; a contradictory result showing overconfidence in their abilities." If we define some measure of badness, and the distribution is skewed in that direction, it's entirely possible for "most" drivers (the median) to be to the left of the "average" (the mean). This would happen if a few really bad drivers skew the mean to the right. If we had a ref to the RAC survey we could probably clear this up. Kendall-K1 (talk) 13:27, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

In my two decades as a traffic engineer, I have not seen anything that leads me to believe that driver skill varies much from a standard distribution. Imho, confirmation bias and Dunning-Kruger are more likely explanations. --Triskele Jim 21:40, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

The ref was there, I just didn't look hard enough. It says, "78 per cent of motorists rate their own driving highly whilst few think others are very good behind the wheel." Also, "the survey shows motorists are not as good as they think they are." Given that, and your observation, I guess I'm happy with the wording as-is. Thanks. Kendall-K1 (talk) 00:07, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Plz add section regarding suicide by traffic collision...murder suicide...wrong way driver etc.

Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.180.214.34 (talk) 17:32, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

excellent article with various breakdowns by gender, age, mileage.

DOI: 10.1016/0001-4575(94)00050-V — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.142.197.182 (talk) 21:38, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• Road Traffic Accidents.png

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 00:24, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

How to look up fatal car accidents in Louisiana

I want to look up a fatal car accident that happened January 12 1994 in Louisiana Mia & Brezzy (talk) 20:46, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Recently reverted edit

The following text was recently reverted: Road transport is the most dangerous situation people deal with on a daily basis; but these casualty figures attract less media attention than other, less frequent events like mass murder. Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death in the workplace in the United States accounting for 35 percent of all workplace fatalities. The edit summary was: "Reverting addition of overly generalised, not encyclopedically significant musings; please gain consensus on the talk page that includes an agreement of exactly what point you're trying to make here that isn't in the article and without which the article is deficient." I suggest these superlative conclusions of the World Health Organization (WHO) might be taken more seriously than generalized, encyclopedically insignificant musings. The first statement seems a more understandable summary than the more detailed information presently scattered thru this article. I interpret WHO's media attention comparison as illustrating a distraction from the most significant danger. From an historical perspective, focus on reducing mass murders would be less effective than traffic safety focus at preventing deaths and injuries. In the present climate crisis, improving road safety for pedestrians, bicycles, and smaller, slower, and more fuel efficient vehicles is arguably even more important. I am open as to where these statements might best be placed (either independently or together) in this article. Thewellman (talk) 22:15, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

References

@Thewellman: I don't love the use of a U.S. statistic at the top of the section, since this is a globally-focused page, but other than that I think your addition is okay. There's certainly room in this article for discussion on how the media tends to report on traffic collisions, including victim blaming; we have sources like [4] and [5] to cite. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:36, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

While there may be a place for this type of content in the body of the article, it seems out of place in the lead. Also, while the cited source does refer to less frequent forms of tragedy it does not give examples, so the specific reference to "mass murders" is unsourced and raises verifiablity issues. Arllaw (talk) 15:08, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

I suggest the World Health Organization's conclusion succinctly stating the international notability of this subject is uniquely suitable for the lead of this article. Thewellman (talk) 17:33, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

The issue isn't what the WHO says. It's about complying with the manual of style for the lead. WP:MOSLEAD Arllaw (talk) 00:30, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Use of "accident" in main page blurb

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors § Today's POTD. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:27, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Definition

In the Oxford Learner's Dictionary, the definition of car crash or traffic collision says, "​an accident in which a car hits something, for example another vehicle, usually causing damage and often killing or injuring the passengers", where the word "car" substitute "vehicle" and it hits something. The word "something" substitute (pedestrians, poles, tress, vehicles, etc...) and "hit" is any physical collisions. The Supermind (talk) 06:29, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Simple counts are almost never used?

"Simple counts are almost never used."

Indeed some countries give simple counts.

Might be we mean: Simple counts are almost never comparable? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.67.202.122 (talk) 10:21, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Epidemiology visual aid's clarity

Due to some i.p. address edit warring, I am starting a thread for positive conversation regarding a possible necessity of clarification in the maps found in this section. I, personally, would not mind a clarification as long as it is; (1) Accurate to the data of the maps in question (2) Formatted in accordance with the manual of style (3) Inclusive of all notable countries, whether with low or high fatality rates. Emlythk (talk) 20:27, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. Logic being if I had to look up Central African Republic or Czechia externally, then other people would too. Very strange not to list the countries when there are two that are very different from everywhere else. It's just not good enough to write everything off as "vandalism", and it's DEFINITELY not good enough to omit the names through risk of "offending" people. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.148.155.84 (talk) 20:35, 14 December 2023 (UTC)