Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vehicular violence in the United States


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. The arguments to keep are very poorly reasoned. The existence of an analogous article on gun violence has absolutely nothing to do with whether this article should exist; the existence of this article depends solely on the coverage that this topic has received. Some !votes do touch on the coverage, but there another problem emerges, namely that the coverage being pointed to already has been handled elsewhere. Nobody can deny vehicles are used as a tool of violence, but when the sources are largely referring to Vehicle-ramming attack, which already exists, they cannot also contribute to notability here. Vanamonde (Talk) 15:22, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Vehicular violence in the United States

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This article is a textbook case of WP:SYNTH and WP:OR. It claims there is an inherent notability in the topic of "vehicular violence", and yet the definition it offers for such a term is highly generalized, redundant, and even inaccurate. The article mostly talks about road transport accidents and related statistics, which is most certainly not vehicular violence, at least from how I understand it based on the term's malicious connotation. That topic is already covered by such articles as traffic collision.

The other topics mentioned in the article already have well-developed articles of their own, e.g. road rage, hit and run, vehicle-ramming attack, car bomb (I'm actually not even sure how that fits into vehicular violence), drive-by shooting (another topic that was somehow lumped into the article's topic), etc. Overall, the topic seems poorly defined, with confusing criteria and a complete redundancy to its name. Love of Corey (talk) 07:07, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete - This is a case of WP:SYNTH if I've ever seen one. The title itself is already problematic, as this is not a widely used or discussed term as far as I can see.  I can only find one real case of it being used, in a university paper that was published in a geographic journal, and even then, the term is exclusively being used to describe cases of vehicular manslaughter, and not any of the other topics covered here.  While each section is sourced, linking these separate things (accidents, drive by shootings, bombings) into one topic by virtue of the fact that they all involve automobiles in some way is not a conclusion that seems to be supported by actual reliable sources, and was synthesized by the author to create this overall topic.  That goes for the odd sections at the end about the California car buying program as well - there are no sources linking it to the topics covered in the rest of the article, particularly since that program was established to fight air pollution, not "vehicular violence".  Rorshacma (talk) 16:20, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Update - Apologies, I inadvertently was not doing proper searches before, so I have to take back that the term "Vehicular Violence" is not widely used - the term is a common one, but again, seems to only be referring to cases of vehicular manslaughter or other cases of injury caused by operating an automobile, and not any of the other included examples (bombings, transporting weapons, drive-bys, etc.). So, all of the arguments of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH still apply.  Rorshacma (talk) 16:47, 5 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep - The title and format of subject article follow the long-established article Gun violence in the United States, which similarly covers a subject with a number of well-developed articles on subordinate topics. Many of the objections raised here have previously been discussed in the archives of the talk page for that article. Since the gun violence article includes accidental firearm injuries, it seems appropriate this article should include injuries from vehicular accidents. I suggest violence describes the effect rather than the intent. An earthquake or tornado may be described as violent without implying any malice. The difficulty separating accidental firearms deaths from intentional shootings or separating justifiable police shootings from police brutality is similar to the difficulty in differentiating vehicle ramming attacks from accidental collisions or determining appropriate speeds under conditions at the time of collisions. Investigators may have varying points of view. The common thread between the two articles is the similar number of deaths and injuries resulting from use of different machines. Thewellman (talk) 18:47, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment - You make good points in regards to the coverage of both accidental and intentional accidents/collisions in one article. But, its the coverage of that combined with many of the other sections that make this article problematic, in my opinion.  The topics such as drive-by shootings, transporting weapons, and usage of cars as car bombs are not really covered together in any of the sources along with accidents/ramming attacks, nor do I see the term vehicular violence commonly applied to such things.  And that is what makes this article seem very heavy on synthesis.  And that last section on the buy-back program seems very out of place since, as I mentioned, that program was developed specifically to get junk cars that have high levels of emissions and bad fuel efficiency out of use, not to combat any of the above mentioned issues of violence.  If the article was pared down and better defined to cover specifically what is commonly defined as "vehicular violence", then I could probably get on board with it.  But as it stands, the WP:SYNTH material needs to go.  Rorshacma (talk) 19:09, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 10:01, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 10:01, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 10:01, 6 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Comment Intentional "vehicular violence" is a very real phenomenon, if there is not enough coverage to have an article specifically for the United States maybe a move and broadening of the subject matter to all countries could be made.★Trekker (talk) 20:21, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
 * As mentioned before, there are already articles that talk about violence involving vehicles, e.g. road rage, hit and run, and vehicle-ramming attack. The topic of "vehicular violence" seems way too general, and I don't see the point of lumping these distinct ideas together under one umbrella. Love of Corey (talk) 05:10, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I see the point to it, because automobiles are a studied cause of injury and death, just like guns are with the gun violence article. Also, there are articles on automobile safety, dependency, effect on society, environmental impact, etc. This article is in line with those in showing effects of automobile usage. ɱ  (talk) 21:32, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
 * We already have an article on automobile safety, and it's called traffic collision. Love of Corey (talk) 10:40, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete - a clear-cut case of synthesis. "Violence" is a loaded term to begin with, and the fact that nearly half of this article is about collision, injury, and ownership statistics would seem to imply a link between vehicle ownership and intentional violence, which in addition to being original research sounds like POV-pushing. --Sable232 (talk) 00:14, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   19:54, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep: Follows standard in Gun violence in the United States. Seems to be the only article focusing on all the dangers of automobiles together, so it's important to keep even if it requires reworking. ɱ  (talk) 21:26, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Ever heard of the article traffic collision? Love of Corey (talk) 10:40, 18 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep - We have other pages very similar to this, and this article follows the standards of those very well. This is a topic of reasonable interest which I think is worth covering. Foxnpichu (talk) 22:06, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Would you mind listing these pages that you mentioned? And no, gun violence in the United States doesn't count; just proved how that analogy doesn't work. Love of Corey (talk) 04:06, 18 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Reluctant keep, but fix lots of issues. What a mess, verging on WP:TNT. What do routine, unintentional traffic accidents have to do with vehicular violence? Delete the Speed, Vehicle ownership, Costs and Vehicle buyback programs sections to begin with. Also remove the statistics in the intro. Clarityfiend (talk) 06:35, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep, useful article, but needs major updates, and cleanup. New3400 (talk) 13:33, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete. Unlike Gun violence in the United States, it does not exist as a single coherent subject/topic. Google scholar search produces 1 result to a source of questionable quality, Google books produces 1, etc. One can find some, but they are not really on the subject of this page. Hence this is classic COATRACK and therefore WP:SYN. My very best wishes (talk) 03:54, 17 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Comment - One would have a trouble even with creating a page on Vehicular violence in general, not necessarily in the US. Basically, there is no such thing as Vehicular violence. There are road rage, hit and run, vehicle-ramming attack, car bomb, drive-by shooting, but those are all different subjects. There is nothing to blame the car, specifically in US. "Gun violence in the United States" is a notable subject because there are laws in the US which create or allows such violence. There is nothing like that about cars in the US. My very best wishes (talk) 18:03, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
 * What you talkin' about, Willis? "Viewing Vehicular Violence through a Wide Angle Lens: Contributing Factors and a Proposed Framework" (Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice), "Vehicular Violence Accountability Act Proposed Statute" (Manhattan District Attorney's Office), "The New Tools of Terror: Vehicular Violence at Center of Recent Attacks" (ABC News), "Motor vehicles are weapons of destruction" (Canadian Medical Association Journal), "Contributors to Vehicular Violence" (ASTM International), etc. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:23, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Only your sources #1 ("Viewing Vehicular Violence through a Wide Angle Lens: Contributing Factors and a Proposed Framework", an original research article) and #4 ("Motor vehicles are weapons of destruction", a book review) can be used to justify the general subject of "Vehicular Violence", rather than the "Vehicular Violence" specifically for US. #2 is a legal paper with proposals about traffic violations, #3 is about vehicle-ramming attacks, #5 is actually about traffic accidents despite to the heading. This is not nearly enough to justify this page. There are sources with just a combination of words "Vehicular violence", but one should check what these sources are actually about. My very best wishes (talk) 02:06, 18 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep, Interesting topic and provides useful information, I suggest some more work on the article. Alex-h (talk) 08:17, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment - Did none of these keep!votes even read my rationale? The examples of so-called "vehicular violence" provided in this article are either not violent at all (e.g. car accidents), utterly irrelevant to the definition brought forward (e.g. car bomb), or redundant (e.g. vehicle-ramming attack). That is the definition of WP:SYNTH. Also, there seems to be some sort of WP:POINTy anti-automobile slant to this article, what with the focus on vehicle ownership and buyback programs. Love of Corey (talk) 10:40, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Exactly. I can see only one book and only one article [ on the general topic of "vehicular violence", but even they are not really on the subject of this page, which is such violence specifically in the USA. [[User:My very best wishes|My very best wishes]] (talk) 14:03, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
 * In fact, the lead of this page was a copyvio from here. Note that even that was not specifically about USA. My very best wishes (talk) 15:08, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
 * For context, this was the original lede.


 * I would also like to clarify on what I meant by "irrelevant to the definition brought forward". The lede of the article currently defines "vehicular violence" as "situations when a motor vehicle was intentionally used as a weapon, and it may involve road rage, hit and run incidents, vehicle-ramming attacks, car bombs, and drive-by shooting." While I may understand the first three, the last two just completely surprise me. In those cases, the vehicle is only being used as a delivery mechanism for the actual weapon (bomb for car bomb and firearm for drive-by shooting). Their qualification in this definition seems to be more out of convenience than any sort of extensively documented research


 * As an analogy, referring to the airplanes hijacked during the September 11 attacks as weapons would be accurate, because they were rammed into their targets and caused all the damage and loss of life that we saw that day. In contrast, Metrojet Flight 9268 cannot be accurately referred to as a weapon because it was destroyed by the actual weapon, a bomb that it was carrying. While some may argue the Metrojet bombing analogy is invalid because the bombing didn't affect a populated area in addition to the plane, please note that car bombs have also been used in targeted assassinations and assassination attempts that didn't affect populated areas, e.g. Assassination of Orlando Letelier. How could incidents in which vehicles were targeted as the sites of killings, not as weapons, be considered acts of "vehicular violence", then? Love of Corey (talk) 20:41, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I made it very quickly to fix a copyvio. You are more than welcome to fix anything further on the page if you wish. I was looking at this source (same as this), and it say: "In the present article, a proposed framework for viewing vehicular violence is presented with three zones of immediacy - the mediate (tangential use of the vehicle in the violent act), intermediate (where the vehicle is used to facilitate the violence), and immediate (where the vehicle is the actual weapon).". So, it does cover everything. But in the present article . There is little else on this subject. Hence "delete". My very best wishes (talk) 21:21, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
 * As about the site/place of violence, that can be legit. Consider domestic violence. My very best wishes (talk) 21:40, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I did not know that's what the source said. Even so, as you said, it's only one source laying out such criteria. I would be singing a different tune if more research articles and independent sources on this topic said the same thing, or things to that affect. Love of Corey (talk) 06:10, 19 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete - clear WP:SYNTH compounded with a misrepresentation of common accidents as "violence". Trying to reconnect (talk) 22:03, 18 September 2020 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.