Car accidents are almost never accidents in the truest sense of the word, with the culpability overwhelmingly residing with drivers who are distracted, drunk, pilled up, sleepy, agitated or simply incompetent. It’s been especially bad recently with traffic-related deaths rising at an alarming rate. These are exactly the kind of facts technologists cite when touting the lifesaving powers of driverless, which will happen at some point even if it’s not quite as soon as Musks and Googlers hope. Until that day, some in the traffic-safety world think we’d be better served by a change in vernacular that would stop referring to these crashes and collisions as “accidents.”

From Matt Richtel at the 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.•