The excellent @pluralistic highlighted this Wired article from 2015 regarding car “accidents”. The author’s story mirrors our own loss of our three year old daughter playing in front of our house in 2012. There needs to be greater accountability for people using automobiles.

https://www.wired.com/2015/10/stop-calling-daughters-death-car-accident/

#CrashNotAccident #Cars

Stop Calling My Daughter's Death a Car Accident

When we say “accident,” we are saying deaths on our cities' streets are inevitable.

WIRED

@thegaffer @pluralistic The shooting sports community has been working for years to do something similar, replacing the term "accidental discharge" with "negligent discharge" to reflect the fact that barring extremely rare mechanical malfunctions, guns don't just go off on their own.

If it fires without you intending, it's because you were doing something stupid and dangerous like having it loaded when you shouldn't have, leaving your finger on the trigger, etc.

So just like with a significant number of car crashes, it's not an accident it's negligent behavior on the part of the operator. This sort of terminology should become more prevalent in general.

@azonenberg @thegaffer @pluralistic I have nothing against the new terminology here, but there is one difference between cars and guns. The problem with drivers is that the car infested society cannot reasonably strip someone of their license when they operate a car negligently because that's effectively grounding them and possibly starving them. The car centric urban design is probably doing 80% of the killing.

@shironeko @thegaffer @azonenberg @pluralistic
In the USA, it is significantly easier to revoke someone's driver's license than to restrict their possession of guns.

Where I live, which is semi-rural and poorly served by public transportation, if you see a 40-year old riding a bike (or more likely, e-bike) in street clothes, you absolutely know it's because they lost their driver's license.

@RealGene @shironeko @thegaffer @azonenberg @pluralistic

and, I imagine if it's an open carry state - it wouldn't be too out of place to see that same person on a bike or e-bike with a pistol in a holster attached to their belt.