Talk:Accident

New entry
This entry is long and convoluted and not even necessarily an accurate description of what an accident is. While the author's efforts are appreciated, this page should be scrapped and rewritten, perhaps by someone with legal expertise regarding accidents. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.186.234.105 (talk) 18:52, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Clean-up & consistency
21 October 2008: General clean-up and reorganization. Edited so the article speaks with 'one voice', rather than three. Edited scattered 'injury prevention professional/community'-type references into a single logical element. Moved the minor references to the end of the article. Fixed some very minor grammatical issues.

I agree with Fokkerdude's == Intentional? == comments. An accident occurs when *someone* is *doing something* and the *something being done* goes wrong, for good or ill. Anything else is an incident, and the 'accident' label is inappropriate. For example, the collapsing stadium picture used in the article (which was not my contribution) is a poor example; it's actually an 'incident' that happens to look accidental. A better example would be, say, a kid jumping off of a garage roof with a 'Superman' cape made from a towel, or almost any circumstance depicted on a Jackass episode that ends in more severe injuries than expected. Anything else falls into the category of being hit by a meteor: maybe bad luck, but not accidental.

Finally, thanks to the cretin who edited my previous 'discussion' entry to shorten it, screwing up both what I meant and what I said. I'm out ... -afrab_null

sammie bwoii —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.65.158.68 (talk) 11:00, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

workplace accidents
Would any one mind if I added a section on the workplace? specific to work accidents and injuriesDocsim (talk) 06:56, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Full Definition of accident 1 a : an unforeseen and unplanned event or circumstance b : lack of intention or necessity :  chance  2 a : an unfortunate event resulting especially from carelessness or ignorance b : an unexpected and medically important bodily event especially when injurious  c : an unexpected happening causing loss or injury which is not due to any fault or misconduct on the part of the person injured but for which legal relief may be sought d —used euphemistically to refer to an involuntary act or instance of urination or defecation 3
 * a nonessential property or quality of an entity or circumstance 

Could someone please show me where in this definition from Webster it is required that it be preventable in order to be called an accident? Wikipedia is the first place I have heard this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cliffordmklym (talk • contribs) 13:50, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

A bit of a muddle
At the start we read "An accident, also known as an unintentional injury..." and later we read "Physical examples of accidents include unintended motor vehicle collisions". Those are two quite different meanings of the word "accident" - vehicles can collide without anyone being injured. 86.132.220.139 (talk) 21:52, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Defining an accident
I have looked into a definition of accident, and update the article to reflect what the sources say. A logged-out editor has reverted this twice, including removing citations to reliable sources.

It seems that the main objection is about whether to have an article on what accidents actually are, as defined in scholarly literature, or to have an article (we would call it a Set index article) on all the things that people use this word for, including non-accidental "accidents".

I think it's better to have this article follow the scholarly sources. What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:38, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Agreed that there is serious issues with the premise here. They use a single obscure book to define a term as meaning that it must have no human cause then proceed to list workplace "accidents" motor vehicle "accidents" etc etc... This is inconsistent with both how the word is used in practice and the content of the article. So what is it? Can it have a human cause or not?

The Merriam-Webster dictionary seems fine with human caused "accidents": "" Definition of accident 1a: an unforeseen and unplanned event or circumstance Their meeting was an accident. b: lack of intention or necessity : CHANCE They met by accident rather than by design. 2a: an unfortunate event resulting especially from carelessness or ignorance was involved in a traffic accident bmedical : an unexpected and medically important bodily event especially when injurious a cerebrovascular accident claw : an unexpected happening causing loss or injury which is not due to any fault or misconduct on the part of the person injured but for which legal relief may be sought dUS, informal —used euphemistically to refer to an uncontrolled or involuntary act or instance of urination or defecation (as by a baby or a pet) The puppy had an accident on the rug. 3: a nonessential property or quality of an entity or circumstance the accident of nationality ""

Oxford says: "" [countable] an unpleasant event, especially in a vehicle, that happens unexpectedly and causes injury or damage a car/highway/traffic accident He was killed in an accident. One in seven accidents is caused by sleepy drivers. The accident happened at 3  p.m. to have an accident a serious/minor accident a fatal accident (= in which someone is killed) accidents in the home a climbing/riding accident Take out accident insurance before you go on your trip. I didn't mean to break it—it was an accident.

[countable, uncountable] something that happens unexpectedly and is not planned in advance Their early arrival was just an accident. It is no accident that men fill most of the high-paying jobs in finance. an accident of birth/fate/history (= describing facts and events that are due to chance or circumstances) "" 104.246.224.162 (talk) 00:15, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

It's so ridiculous, people are trying to redefine a word that was already perfectly suited to its role. If it's not a road traffic "accident" then what is it? A "road traffic deliberate"? We have terms for that already, they're called "attempted murder" or "terrorism". Most people however, do not set out to deliberately run someone over with their car, they do it by accident, hence the word.

And why do these aspiring wordsmiths always want to change the definition of a word without an adequate replacement? "Crash" is too specific and doesn't cover accidents that did not result in material damage; "incident" is too minor; "disaster" and "tragedy" are too severe, and "collision" includes the deliberate events. "Accident" covers everything that isn't deliberate, and does its job perfectly! Besides, if we are to accept the premise that an accident requires that no human is to blame, then the meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs would have to be called an "accident"! Does that sound right?! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A0A:EF40:E10:FE01:F9D6:5156:1715:370B (talk) 22:40, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

I have seen accident
I have seen accident 42.107.80.95 (talk) 13:08, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Ileana Ramos Mendez
Disputa 2605:BA00:2107:FE73:C31:3982:1CAD:CAB4 (talk) 18:24, 17 October 2023 (UTC)