Several advocacy groups are suggesting to repalce the word “crash” with “accident” when referring to automobile collisions.
An “accident” is, by definition, unintentional. We accidentally drop dinner plates. The word also suggests something of the unforeseen. It is an event that couldn’t have been anticipated, for which no one can be blamed.
That second connotation is what irks transportation advocates who want to change how we talk about traffic collisions. When one vehicle careens into another or rounds a corner into a pedestrian — call it a “crash,” they say, not an “accident.”
According by Emily Badger reporter from The Washington post.