More policing by social media

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[XAP]Bob
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Re: More policing by social media

Post by [XAP]Bob »

mattheus wrote: 4 Dec 2021, 2:42pm
thirdcrank wrote: 4 Dec 2021, 2:03pm Not a headline and no "just",
Keep trying then.
Are you suggesting that meanings are only defined by headlines?
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
thirdcrank
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Re: More policing by social media

Post by thirdcrank »

The headline described this as a "horror smash."

One of the early replies is here: (with my apologies for quoting it a second time.)
Hellhound wrote: 2 Dec 2021, 12:34pm It was an accident.
No need to prosecute anyone.
The 'prosecute this and prosecute' that mentality of the UK,especially where motorists are concerned,is a joke :roll:
Now, it certainly was an "accident" in terms of the Road Traffic Act etc but the rest of that implies the "only an accident" sense which upsets some campaigners.

To be fair to Hellhound, his interpretation is now the accepted official analysis, and if anybody doubts this the apparent police response confirms he is correct. They even made a joke about it.
mattheus
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Re: More policing by social media

Post by mattheus »

cycle tramp wrote: 5 Dec 2021, 7:17pm
mattheus wrote: 5 Dec 2021, 6:43pm
[XAP]Bob wrote: 5 Dec 2021, 12:45pm Are you suggesting that the use of a word is defined by headlines?
Are you suggesting balloons are made of penguins?
Oh my Lord!?!!..... Are they?... That's terrible!
..
DONT PANIC! Penguins doesn't mean what you think. Not any more.
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Hellhound
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Re: More policing by social media

Post by Hellhound »

cycle tramp wrote: 2 Dec 2021, 9:58pm
Hellhound wrote: 2 Dec 2021, 4:20pm Stick to cycling.
I would, unless you're driving your van, in which case I might do some gardening or something - because if you can't understand risk, or that something may happen to affect another road user causing them to react in a way you may not expect, then I really don't want to be sharing road space with you.
I don't drive a van.I drive a car and have never had an accident nor been close to having an accident.
Before making assumptions maybe you should politely ask before hand :wink:
thirdcrank wrote: 5 Dec 2021, 9:38pm The headline described this as a "horror smash."
One of the early replies is here: (with my apologies for quoting it a second time.)
Hellhound wrote: 2 Dec 2021, 12:34pm It was an accident.
No need to prosecute anyone.
The 'prosecute this and prosecute' that mentality of the UK,especially where motorists are concerned,is a joke :roll:
Now, it certainly was an "accident" in terms of the Road Traffic Act etc but the rest of that implies the "only an accident" sense which upsets some campaigners.
To be fair to Hellhound, his interpretation is now the accepted official analysis, and if anybody doubts this the apparent police response confirms he is correct. They even made a joke about it.
Wow,common sense prevails!!
cycle tramp
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Re: More policing by social media

Post by cycle tramp »

Hellhound wrote: 6 Dec 2021, 5:57pm
cycle tramp wrote: 2 Dec 2021, 9:58pm
Hellhound wrote: 2 Dec 2021, 4:20pm Stick to cycling.
I would, unless you're driving your van, in which case I might do some gardening or something - because if you can't understand risk, or that something may happen to affect another road user causing them to react in a way you may not expect, then I really don't want to be sharing road space with you.
I don't drive a van.I drive a car and have never had an accident nor been close to having an accident.
Before making assumptions maybe you should politely ask before hand :wink:
thirdcrank wrote: 5 Dec 2021, 9:38pm The headline described this as a "horror smash."
One of the early replies is here: (with my apologies for quoting it a second time.)
Hellhound wrote: 2 Dec 2021, 12:34pm It was an accident.
No need to prosecute anyone.
The 'prosecute this and prosecute' that mentality of the UK,especially where motorists are concerned,is a joke :roll:
Now, it certainly was an "accident" in terms of the Road Traffic Act etc but the rest of that implies the "only an accident" sense which upsets some campaigners.
To be fair to Hellhound, his interpretation is now the accepted official analysis, and if anybody doubts this the apparent police response confirms he is correct. They even made a joke about it.
Wow,common sense prevails!!
In which case, fair play to you, and please accept my apologies.

I've caused two collisions so far, the first when I left a t junction on my motorcycle without properly checking the t junction was clear and was hit by a transit, which bounced me and my motorcycle down the road. It kinda hurt, alot.
And the second was gently rear ending a car... I was second in the queue, waiting to enter a roundabout, tge first car hand pulled away, I checked that the roundabout was clear, but had failed to check the car in front had moved forward. For some reason it hadn't and I drove into it.

Neither collision I would call an accident- whilst it was something I never intended, both could have been avoided if I was paying more attention.
Last edited by cycle tramp on 6 Dec 2021, 9:44pm, edited 1 time in total.
It's time to go :-)
cycle tramp
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Re: More policing by social media

Post by cycle tramp »

My issue, having caused road collisions in the past is that if you don't own them, you won't learn from them. If some calls a road collision an accident then there is less responsibility on the driver to own it, and learn from it.

Which is scary. The thing that scares me the most is that if I'd been driving a van, and the other party had been riding a motorcycle then I would have wiped him out. I could have killed someone.

It's possibly the reason why I now take road safety perhaps with more gravity than others. Road collisions not only ruin the lives of the victims but can ruin the lives of everyone involved. Had i have killed someone, I'm not sure if I could have mentally survived.

My last collision happened on a roundabout. I was driving in the outside lane and a Mercedes in the inside lane suddenly pulled across and our front wings collided. Had I been on a motorcycle or a bicycle it probably would have been more serious. The other driver apologised profusely, and as there was only some paint work damage we left it as that.
The driver was kind enough to explain that the reason they'd left their lane was for one spilt second they thought they was on the next roundabout about half a mile down the road, and before they could control it, their instinct and habit kicked in and they suddenly pulled of left to reach their exit lane - which kinda shows that collisions can happen for all types of reasons.
Last edited by cycle tramp on 6 Dec 2021, 10:25pm, edited 2 times in total.
It's time to go :-)
Jdsk
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Re: More policing by social media

Post by Jdsk »

cycle tramp wrote: 6 Dec 2021, 7:25pmNeither collision I would call an accident- whilst it was something I never intended, both could have been avoided if I was paying more attention.
Thanks for the honesty. And that's precisely the point.

Jonathan
mattheus
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Re: More policing by social media

Post by mattheus »

As a young inexperienced driver, I crashed at speed on ice. Car written off, me in hospital for 9 weeks.
It was an accident, but an avoidable one.

Yes, I learned from it.
Stevek76
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Re: More policing by social media

Post by Stevek76 »

mattheus wrote: 4 Dec 2021, 1:51pm Equally the phrase " person X caused an accident" is well used, and equally easily understood.
Only really in the context of a motor crash though. I don't think anyone is disputing that it's not well used or understood, the point is it's only used in this sense for motor crashes and so the older, more general blameless sense of the word bleeds over.

Indeed it quite possibly became the common word for motor collisions due to societies relaxed approach to road safety.
The contents of this post, unless otherwise stated, are opinions of the author and may actually be complete codswallop
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: More policing by social media

Post by [XAP]Bob »

Hellhound wrote: 6 Dec 2021, 5:57pm
Now, it certainly was an "accident" in terms of the Road Traffic Act etc but the rest of that implies the "only an accident" sense which upsets some campaigners.
To be fair to Hellhound, his interpretation is now the accepted official analysis, and if anybody doubts this the apparent police response confirms he is correct. They even made a joke about it.
Wow,common sense prevails!!
No - common sense has not prevailed.

It wasn't an accident except in the sense that that word is used in the legislation.

It was an entirely foreseeable and preventable collision caused entirely by the poor driving of one, very lucky, motorist.
It would have been no more or less an accident if there had been another road user in between them and they had been killed.
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
Vorpal
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Re: More policing by social media

Post by Vorpal »

The word accident has been used heavily in media precisely because it avoids placing responsibility on anyone. However, this has led to also avoiding any terms that imply agency by motorists.

As a result, there have, in recent years, been some effort to change this

https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonrei ... uidelines/
https://pressgazette.co.uk/new-guidelin ... -accident/
https://www.comminit.com/content/report ... ournalists
“In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.”
― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
mattheus
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Re: More policing by social media

Post by mattheus »

[XAP]Bob wrote: 7 Dec 2021, 1:45pm It was an entirely foreseeable and preventable collision caused entirely by the poor driving of one, very lucky, motorist.
It would be just as correct to write:

It was an entirely foreseeable and preventable accident caused entirely by the poor driving of one, very lucky, motorist.
Vorpal
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Re: More policing by social media

Post by Vorpal »

mattheus wrote: 7 Dec 2021, 2:39pm
[XAP]Bob wrote: 7 Dec 2021, 1:45pm It was an entirely foreseeable and preventable collision caused entirely by the poor driving of one, very lucky, motorist.
It would be just as correct to write:

It was an entirely foreseeable and preventable accident caused entirely by the poor driving of one, very lucky, motorist.
As a general rule, safety professionals do not consider something that is foreseeable & preventable to be an accident, and generally either refer to the outcome (injury, near miss, etc.) or use incident instead.
“In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.”
― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
mattheus
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Re: More policing by social media

Post by mattheus »

Vorpal wrote: 7 Dec 2021, 3:08pm
mattheus wrote: 7 Dec 2021, 2:39pm
[XAP]Bob wrote: 7 Dec 2021, 1:45pm It was an entirely foreseeable and preventable collision caused entirely by the poor driving of one, very lucky, motorist.
It would be just as correct to write:

It was an entirely foreseeable and preventable accident caused entirely by the poor driving of one, very lucky, motorist.
As a general rule, safety professionals do not consider something that is foreseeable & preventable to be an accident, and generally either refer to the outcome (injury, near miss, etc.) or use incident instead.
I'm afraid you're mind-reading there!
It may be their common practice to avoid the word in their reports, stats etc - and I would agree, based on the parts of my job that impinge on that world - but that doesn't mean they do not understand what an accident is, in the same terms as the general public.

After all, how many injuries in the workplace are not preventable in some way? It's a ridiculous concept.
mattheus
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Re: More policing by social media

Post by mattheus »

If I walked around this place with an exposed sharp knife-blade in the course of a normal task; then tripped and stabbed a colleague; and someone shortly after asked if it was an accident, no-one would say "That was no accident!"

UNLESS they believed I did it deliberately.
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