What is the difference between Car Accident and Car Collision?
admin | Jan 22, 2012 | 4 comments
Question by Mr S. Thermal: What is the difference between Car Accident and Car Collision?
I saw it in the movie Hot Fuzz and it recently brought up the question. Whats the difference between an Car accident and a car collision? please explain in details. I had this question before, but no one really answered it properly. If its not an accident, then they did it on purpose?
Best answer:
Answer by Cycling Magician
An accident says there is no one to blame cause it just naturally happened by nature. i.e. A tree fell and everyone scrambled to avoid it. An collision has someone to blame. Someone is doing something wrong, like talking on a cellphone, or simply not paying attention.
What do you think? Answer below!
Filed Under: Car Accident
Hmmm…
Well an accident is just that, an accident (something that wasn’t on purpose.) Some accidents result in a collision, but not all collisions are accidents….
For example, you may be driving in a demolition derby and have a purposeful collision (kind of the point, huh). How about a police officer that purposely turns into the back of a car it’s pursuing in an attempt to spin it out. Or a criminal who purposely collides with other cars? All are examples of a collision that are not accidents. They are done with intent.
Does that help?
An accident is a euphemism for collision. It makes normal people feel good about their irresponsible driving habits. In reality most accidents are really collisions. Most of America’s 40,000 – 45,000 annual traffic fatalities are the results of collisions not accidents.
A traffic accident is the result of some unforeseeable condition that reasonable human effort couldn’t prevent. For example, Even though the tractor-trailer was inspected, the mechanic had no way of knowing that there was an internal fracture on the trucks pitman arm, the pitman arm connects to the steering box and controls the steering of the truck. No reasonable human inspection could have revealed it. As a result, the truck was driving down a crowed interstate when the pitman arm failed. The truck careened off the road and into oncoming traffic striking several cars and causing five fatalities. This is an accident.
John Q. Public was traveling down Rt. 72 North, a twisty section of roadway in West Virginia’s Appalachian mountains. Jane Doe’s car suffered a mechanical breakdown on a switchback of Rt. 72 South. Jane had no way of getting her vehicle off the roadway. Jane was putting out road flares when John entered the switchback. John was driving at the posted speed limit for the turn when he struck Jane, killing her instantly. After a full police investigation, it was determined that both Jane and John had obeyed all traffic laws. It was a simple case of bad timing. If Jane had broken down thirty seconds sooner, she would have had her road flares deployed in time for John to see them.
A traffic collision is something that could have been avoided with reasonable human effort. For example, Edward Mann was driving down interstate 81 in Schuylkill County Pennsylvania. He was in a hurry and traveling at excessive speed, 80 mph in a 65 zone. He was thinking about his upcoming freshman year at Shippensburg University. He was also talking on his cell phone to his girlfriend that would be attending Slippery Rock University. He was taking sips from his coffee and searching for a CD when he failed to see that traffic on I-81 had come to a halt at exit 100 Pine Grove. Failing to stop, he rear ended Sarah Trompeter. Sarah also had her three children along with her. Sarah also failed to maintain a safe distance between her and the car in front of her. She also failed to continuously check her rearview mirror. Since she was the last vehicle in the stopped traffic she could have avoided the collision by checking her rearview mirror for motorists that failed to see the stopped traffic. She also failed to maintain a safe distance between her and the car in front of her. Even if she had seen Edward failing to stop, she couldn’t have done anything because the car in front of her was blocking her path. As a result, Edward, Sarah, her five children, and three other motorists were killed in the fiery crash.
Pennsylvania State Trooper Dan Friendly was struck and killed by a motorist last Friday. On a routine traffic stop, another vehicle with an inattentive driver bumped the vehicle next to him causing it to sideswipe the vehicle Trooper Friendly had stopped. Trooper Friendly was killed instantly.
This is the difference between collisions and accidents. Most of our traffic accidents are really collisions. I guess that it’s America’s way of guilt avoidance or that cars, despite their inherent dangers, have so commonplace that nobody even gives it a thought.
Both mean the same thing most of the time. Collision is an insurance and investigative term.
I don’t know, but this answer gave me the means to hit level 4 !