Hello. They're crashes. Don’t call them accidents anymore. Thank you.

Janette Sadik-Khan, author of Street Fight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution, tweeted a link to this article.

It's no "accident" that we've excused crashes for decades. Our word choices matter – let's adopt the language of life.

"Roadway fatalities are soaring at a rate not seen in 50 years, resulting from crashes, collisions and other incidents caused by drivers."

Words indeed matter, as when my council representative imagines he belongs to a "progressive" political party.

It’s No Accident: Advocates Want to Speak of Car ‘Crashes’ Instead, by Matt Richtel (New York Times)

Roadway fatalities are soaring at a rate not seen in 50 years, resulting from crashes, collisions and other incidents caused by drivers.

Just don’t call them accidents anymore.

That is the position of a growing number of safety advocates, including grass-roots groups, federal officials and state and local leaders across the country. They are campaigning to change a 100-year-old mentality that they say trivializes the single most common cause of traffic incidents: human error.

“When you use the word ‘accident,’ it’s like, ‘God made it happen,’ ” Mark Rosekind, the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said at a driver safety conference this month at the Harvard School of Public Health.

“In our society,” he added, “language can be everything.”

Almost all crashes stem from driver behavior like drinking, distracted driving and other risky activity. About 6 percent are caused by vehicle malfunctions, weather and other factors.

Road Kill 2: "The Trucks Are Killing Us."

Photo credit (from Vancouver WA)

In a densely populated urban area, big trucks should be traveling far more slowly than 35 - 40 mph, as they typically do when passing through New Albany.

Let's be truthful: Jeff Gahan is politically gutless and has done nothing to challenge this potentially hazardous equation. As mayor, at least I'll try -- consistently, openly, in public, from a standpoint of transparency. In the battle for New Albany's streets, we may in, or we may lose.

But you will have absolutely no doubt where I stand on the topic.

The Trucks Are Killing Us, by Howard Abramson (New York Times)

ACCIDENTS like the one that critically injured the comedian Tracy Morgan, killed his friend and fellow comedian James McNair, known as Jimmy Mack, and hurt eight others on the New Jersey Turnpike last year are going to continue to happen unless Congress stops coddling the trucking industry.

More people will be killed in traffic accidents involving large trucks this year than have died in all of the domestic commercial airline crashes over the past 45 years, if past trends hold true. And still Congress continues to do the trucking industry’s bidding by frustrating the very regulators the government has empowered to oversee motor carriers.

Lower speed limits won't solve this. TRAFFIC MUST BE SLOWED BY SAFER STREET DESIGN.

Yet another essay by Marohn that is required reading for all Speck street network opinion dispensers, yay or nay, including the otherwise somnolent Bored of Works and its titular leader, Warren Naps, and every city official whose purposeful neglect of the city's streets puts the lie to their dreary protests of concern for "public safety."

A STATISTICALLY INEVITABLE OUTCOME, by Charles Marohn (Strong Towns)

The light turned signaling it was safe to walk. A four-year-old boy took his mother's hand. Together they stepped out into the crosswalk on their way to a pre-kindergarten class at the Philip Schuyler Achievement Academy in Albany, NY. A garbage truck came around the corner and they were run down. The boy was killed, the mother's life horribly changed forever ...

 ... Let's be clear: this isn't an accident. An accident is defined as, "an event that happens by chance without an apparent cause." While there is certainly an element of chance here -- just as with Russian Roulette -- there is obviously an underlying, preventable cause. This intersection is really dangerous for people outside of a vehicle. Serious injury is statistically inevitable. The design of this space induces high vehicle speeds in a complex environment not conducive to high speeds. There is only superficial protection for pedestrians and bikers. Indeed, the reporter on the scene was able to speak to someone who had seen a similar incident in the recent past.

Linda McClean, who has worked the morning shift at the Subway sandwich shop across Central Avenue from the crash for four years, said the intersection with Quail Street as seen through the store's wall of windows is busy with traffic and can be dangerous to pedestrians. She saw a person get hit in the same intersection last summer.

Let's look at the ways in which this design is deadly for people outside of a vehicle.

All thumbs up, one thumb down.

Thanks to Tammie Miller-Hardy and sons Griffin and Phoenix (and of course, Diana Baylor) for their hours of work yesterday, stripping an emptying my mom's house in preparation for new owners. It was a bittersweet exercise to deconstruct what took 45 years to organize, but luckily there is a destination for quite a lot of the furnishings and unneeded items, and that is a fine outcome, indeed.

Having finished hauling three trucks loads, I reserved my own contribution for last. On the final pitch of the game, headed for the cars to come home, I crashed a lamp against the overhanging roof by the front door. One of the broken pieces raining down gashed my left thumb. Hats off to the Urgent Care at Highlander Point, where the thumb was scrubbed down and a single stitch affixed to hold the cut shut, as well as heavy wrapping and a splint. On Monday morning, it's off to Kutz and Kleinert to see how bad the tendon was damaged, and perhaps minor surgery if it was.

My reason for telling this story is that there is a workplace/home space safety lesson to be learned. I was tired, hungry, thirsty and in a hurry -- and these are the perfect, textbook preludes to accidents. Yesterday I conclusively proved it. In this instance, it could have been far worse, so as Sgt. Esterhaus on "Hill Street Blues" used to say:

"Let's be careful out there."