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news
Richmond Park crash (via Twitter Royal Parks Police)“We try to use language that ordinary people use”: BBC defends use of “accident” to describe road traffic collisions
The BBC has defended its use of the term “accident” when describing road traffic collisions, with the broadcaster telling one listener that “we try to use language that ordinary people use, not the language contained in reports and documents”.
Radio 4 listener Toby Edwards complained to the BBC after an 11am news bulletin on 28 September announced that “figures show that 39 people died after road accidents involving the police between 2021 and 2022”.
Edwards asked the BBC’s Complaints Team if the broadcaster was “sure that all of these collisions were indeed accidents”, or whether “the term ‘accident’ was used mistakenly instead of saying ‘crashes’ or ‘collisions’?”
As Edwards noted in his letter to the BBC, the Media Guidelines for Reporting Road Collisions – coordinated by journalist and road.cc contributor Laura Laker alongside the Active Travel Academy at the University of Westminster, and launched in May 2021 – advises reporters to:
Avoid use of the word ‘accident’ until the facts of a collision are known. Most collisions are predictable and before an enquiry or court case the full facts are unlikely to be known. It is particularly important to avoid the word when someone has been charged with driving offences. Using ‘crash’ or ‘collision’ instead leaves the question of who or what is to blame open, pending further details.
At the time of the guidelines’ launch, Professor Rachel Aldred, the director of the Active Travel Academy, noted that “language matters, as it helps shape how we see and treat others”.
> “Language matters” – Road collision reporting guidelines launched
In a reply to Edward’s letter, received by the Radio 4 listener on 4 November, the BBC’s Complaints Team said: “We note your concerns about our use of the world ‘accident’ in the news report. We were referencing data released by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IPOC) that said: ’39 people died after road incidents involving the police between 2021 and 2022’.”
The response continued: “We’ve discussed your concerns with senior staff in BBC News and, although we take your point that ‘collision’ may have been a preferable word, our job is to write radio scripts that are relatable and understandable, and we try to use language that ordinary people use, not the language contained in reports and documents.
“‘Traffic accident’ is common parlance and we don’t feel here its use materially altered the accuracy of the story. The Road Collision Reporting Guidelines are guidelines, not rules.”
This response from the BBC complaints department justifying their use of the word “accident” instead of “collision” is appalling and irresponsible. @RoadPeace @allpartycycling pic.twitter.com/DSUWsTwrHy
— Töby Édwãrds (@IsSaddleThereIs) November 4, 2022
Sharing the response on Twitter, Edwards described the BBC’s attempt to ‘justify’ the use of the word ‘accident’ as “appalling and irresponsible”.
Criticising the broadcaster’s “very late response”, Edwards told road.cc: “Why aren’t they following the guidelines? If the BBC can’t do it, then it’s hopeless. It’s inaccurate to call all crashes ‘accidents’.”
DCS Andy Cox, head of crime at Lincolnshire Police and national lead for fatal collision investigations, also criticised the BBC’s response on Twitter, writing: “‘Accident’ implies it was unavoidable, just one of those things, bad luck. Instead, many fatal ‘crashes’ occur because a driver made a choice to be dangerous or reckless, and to selfishly break the law.
“Words matter, and can help change an embedded mindset and save lives.”
Another Twitter user pointed out that, the day after Edwards complained about the Radio 4 news bulletin, the Department for Transport agreed, following a consultation, to change the terminology used in its publications and data to refer to collisions, rather than accidents.
“If the DfT can change, why can’t you BBC? You should be taking the lead on following the guidelines, not refusing to report responsibly,” the user tweeted.
> BBC corrects Nick Robinson’s comment that “you cannot use your car” in a low traffic neighbourhood
Radio 4’s decision to ignore the Road Collision Reporting Guidelines isn’t the first time that the station has been criticised for its use of language by cycling campaigners.
In April 2021, the BBC issued a correction after Radio 4 Today programme host Nick Robinson inaccurately claimed that “you cannot use your car” in Low Traffic Neighbourhoods.
Robinson’s comment received a number of complaints, including one from the Labour MP Lilian Greenwood, who is an officer of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Cycling and Walking.
Greenwood, the MP for Nottingham South, wrote to the BBC’s director of editorial policy and standards David Jordan to flag the presenter’s comment as a “falsehood,” adding, “the least we can expect from a national broadcaster is a basic grasp of the facts.”
> ‘Road Rage: Cars v Bikes’: BBC’s Panorama episode receives mixed reception
This week’s latest backlash comes hot on the heels of the mixed reception within the cycling community afforded to the broadcaster’s recent Panorama programme ‘Road Rage: Cars v Bikes’.
Some cycling campaigners, including the Guardian’s Peter Walker and road.cc’s Simon MacMichael, concluded that the investigation was “good in parts” and effectively highlighted the vulnerability of people on bikes and the dangers posed by motorists.
However, the programme was heavily criticised for its use of questionable statistics – the ‘finding’ that a third of drivers believe that cyclists shouldn’t be on the road (a claim that garnered several tabloid headlines) was based on an open-ended online poll – and the presence of divisive interviewees such as Rod Liddle (a controversial voice that was later repeated in subsequent BBC news bulletins on the subject this week).
With the BBC’s use of language under scrutiny, Walker also questioned the divisive nature of the programme’s title. “There’s this weird compulsion to make everything about cycling into a battle. As others have said, it’s less a battle than a massacre,” the journalist tweeted.
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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55 comments
No surprise that the BBC still aren't interested.
They (and most other media outlets) prefer brevity over accuracy.
I've had a short conversation with the BBC's Tom Edwards who also refused to budge on the issue.
I pointed out that the following were examples of correct wording:
"Its funny how the news reporting changes when it doesn't involve a motor vehicle..."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-60902034
"Interesting how the US dept of transportation indicates that it is "hit by a person driving..." rather than "hit by car"..."
https://www.facebook.com/DirtbagUrbanism/photos/a.106611438655885/123478...
"Oh look. Another piece about inaccurate reporting regarding collisions involving motor vehicle drivers..."
https://slate.com/business/2022/05/media-car-crashes-washington-post-ped...
"If this media company can write correctly then so can you."
https://www.unilad.com/celebrity/ben-affleck-son-lamborghini-crashes-car...
"Surrey Police, within a day and presumably without a full investigation, state that the DRIVER collided with their vehicle.... If they can report it correctly, so can you."
https://twitter.com/SurreyRoadCops/status/1559814373656387584
"Feel free to tell the APPGCW that they wrote it incorrectly."
https://twitter.com/allpartycycling/status/1568571716015628288
None of the messages were abusive/trolling.
Needless to say Tom Edwards blocked me.
On the whole accident vs collision thing, I was watching Motorway Cops the other night.
Our Cops were called to a major incident on the motorway. Two cars were completely trashed, whilst a HGV had been stopped and had a few paint marks but was otherwise fine. All drivers tested for drugs and alcohol and everyone clear.
It turned out what had happened was that the HGV was left-hand drive. Its mirror placement meant that the driver could not see anything down the right hand side of his cab or along the body of his truck on that side. He had decided to move into the lane to his right but had been utterly unable to see the car which was passing him on that side so he had collided with it, pushing it out where it then collided with another car.
Luckily nobody was killed or even (very) seriously injured, but Our Cops just wrote it off as "His mirrors are properly adjusted but he just has a huge blind spot - I've sat in his seat and checked ".
And that was that - no further action taken
Two types of accident, the majority the result of the stupidity of humans, a minority, the stupidity of God.
Yeah, but they aren't really accidents if they're caused by stupidity as they're predictable and easily avoided (by not acting so stupidly).
Anyhow, found a handy list of (Abrahamic) God's mistakes:
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Fun:List_of_mistakes_made_by_God
Amongst my favourites are:
Giving bats solid bones, which are difficult to fly with, and giving emus hollow bones, which are easier to fly with, now that is opposite of what is required.
Allowing some species of fish (like hamlet fish, Hypoplectrus spp., and clownfish, Amphiprioninae subfamily) to change their sex freely and even let them choose if they can mate as a male or as a female, without giving trans people this same capacity.
Some people like to allege mistakes on the part of God but as a cultist you'll realise the other possibility is that God doesn't care about us or actively dislikes us. God certainly seems to have had more interest in designing different kinds of beetles than, say, vertebrates. And the fact that things in religious scripture don't square with reality (or even other parts of the same tracts) could just be due to ineffable trolling.
EDIT: Also - no mention of bicycles that I'm aware of. Hiding the good stuff (this was a particular complaint of Paul Erdős)! Presumably some Christian groups would favour the trike anyway? (Image from St. Giles, Stoke Poges)
Fun fact: one in three creatures is a beetle!
I'm a big admirer of Paul Erdős - he somehow lived his dream of doing what he loved (maths) and yet he lived like some kind of mathematical genius hobo. He wasn't a big fan of God
Was waiting for that!
The BBC are certainly using the language ordinary people use when the vehicle impact sends the cyclist and the bike flying into the air... just a near miss innit.
I dunno about you all, but claiming that 'accident' is 'language that ordinary people use,' and 'collision' or 'crash' are not is pretty demeaning of the average person's vocabulary.
Is this why hospitals are dropping the A from A&E? Or should I be checking myself into the ShouldHaveSeenThatComing & Emergency department?
A lot of DIY injuries are down to user error.
If all this energy and passion about how to name things precisely was spent in research and technology, our bicycles would probably be flying now.
Only machines and computers have the right to persistenly ask letter by letter correct texts, we can be a little more flexible.
Au contraire - words have a way with us. It is precisely because of the nuance - or "side-effects" if you will - of certain words, constructions or phrases that such attention is paid to the subject. (Never mind the polemics or poetry, there's lots of psychological research on the "priming" effect of words). Or why e.g. "scientific writing" can appear stilted or dull. As is also said when comparing different languages there is often a trade-off between flexibility and specificity / precision. Aside from "salience" and "sticking to the facts".
Words grouped together in a thesaurus are not simply interchangeable with no effect on the phrase they're in. There is a very good reason politics (and for that matter the law) is often all about the choice and use of words...
I see it a bit different, 70 comments and a few hundreds or maybe thousands reads of this article, and possible numerous others conversations. Seems to me like a lot of time wasted about a word.
True in one sense - but maybe the fact that lots of people are bothering is a measure of ... something? I mean, we have to fill the time between the onset of consciousness and its end - but not all of that is solely spent in hunting and gathering, or (insert whatever activities you think people *should* be prioritising).
The word 'collision' is relatable and understandable is it not?
Better than "accident". Possibly this would be interpreted as x and y have collided. I guess "a cyclist was injured in a collision" is OK but we're then waiting for a missing "...with a ...". For legal reasons broadcasters might not want to go further - it's not necessarily the case always. ("M'lud, our defense was to be that the cyclist fell off their bike without any contact having taken place; however this case cannot now be heard fairly as the BBC has already falsely published that my client collided with the cyclist...")
"Crash" however I think covers it - we can talk about e.g. a cyclist being injured in a crash without creating an expectation that we need to identify another party involved.
I note that the newish Road Safety Investigation Branch has avoided this issue entirely - compare the older sister organisations e.g. "Rail Accident Investigation Branch".
Recently, I thought about complaining to the Beeb as they have drifted into saying on traffic news "road closed due to a police incident". At first I thought this meant that it meant there was a raid, or other action, but they really mean that there was something else causing an issue and the police have been obliged to attend to sort it out. Over time, this careless use of words undermines the police because it creates the impression that the police are the ones generating the problems whereas they are the ones attempting to resolve it.
Indeed the local paper headline in a recent "Car crashes into building" event was:
"Live updates as road closed due to 'police incident' at bridge"
which turned out to be a SMIDSY between a skip lorry and a bridge wearing its high-viz (but who hit who?) - no police involved in the original incident - the road was closed due to the lorry making the bridge unsafe, not due to any action by the police.
And last Wednesday's BBC Radio Wales call in started with this:
"Be honest, do you like cyclists?"
Replace the last word with those who follow a particular religion, or "goths" and it would suddenly be a hate crime. Grim.
I'm in favour of neutral language until facts are known. 'Accident' implies no responsibility by any party whereas 'collision' is just a statement of fact.
The thing that needs changing is the silly pseudo-intellectuals who invented these collision guidelines. I see on these pages very very odd language like "cyclists in collision with lorry driver" and I think to myself "what had he got out of his truck to get a newspaper"?
At least the BBC language is factually correct, whereas these guidelines are not.
Nigel, please remember you apologised for your poor English in your first posts. Try and keep in character.
"Even a child knows this" - Nigel AKA Rakia
I was going to say, can we have the name of their language school as they seem to have been transported from "excuse please English mine not so good" to "the current paradigm of postulate understanding" in about five days!
My boo sense did start tingling with his complaints of not following Europe as they have no growth compared to the UK when he was trying to be from Europe. But then it should have been setoff with him thinking foreigners talk like the Braavos lot in Game of Thrones.
Still just need to ignore him until the racism kicks off again as they site admins will love having the PBU back again for the site clicks.
I know, it's pathetic.
They tripped themselves up back in July under another username in discussion with alsosomniloquism and myself and reverted to type .
Best to ignore them.
There are plenty of words people speak on a daily basis that the BBC don't use for one reason or another so this argument is utter bollards
For similar reasons, as a migrant I complained to the BBC regarding how they describe a person from abroad living in the UK as a "migrant" but a person from the UK living abroad as an "expat". With completely different connotations.
I got a similar reply
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