RE: [ST] Not being seen, accident, and BS

["Emile Nossin" <Emile@xxxxxxxxxx>]

>From: Jack Hays
>OK, I've seen the horse manure about nobody's fault and it's an accident.
>We cannot be held accountable, it must be somebody else's fault. 
>The bottom line is someone made a bad error in judgement and/or a mistake.
>An accident is when the good maintained tire blows out or the dog ran in
>front of you not giving you time to stop if you saw it.

People choosing to distract themselves, people choosing to skip a
maintenance interval or to keep driving on worn tires a bit longer,
people choosing to ride eventhough they are fatigued after a days
work (similar to drinking alcohol, but not sanctioned as such),
they can all be held responsible to a certain extent. But things
aren't always that simple and black and white. Accidents are not
things that happen just because of nature events or technical failures.
And even then, can the state be held responsible for not keeping the
road in a good enough state, causing loose stones to blow out the tire?
Can the dog owner be held responnsible for not training his 2 year old
dog properly? Or for not building a 3 foot high fence around his garden?

So I'm certainly not contradicting you, but trying to make clear that
every human being can still make mistakes or be led into situations
even when they are in a well maintained car and paying constant
attention in a fit state of mind. Like what you see with airplane
accident analyses is that it's usually a whole chain of events
leading up to an accident. A lot of people or organisations in
that chain contribute to lead towards the accident. Every link
is often innocent standalone, but remove one link and the accident
doesn't happen.

According to aviation law an accident is very simple:
it's an occurence in which a person is fatally or seriously
injured, when the aircraft sustains damage or structural failure
and/or when the aircraft is missing or completely inaccessible
(summarized version).

Then you have incidents, which basically is an occurence
where an accident nearly occured.

As you can see an accident is not dependent on the cause
of the injury or death. And eventhough you can hold certain
people responsible for their contribution in the causes
leading up to the accident it is usually short sighted
to want to point out just ONE person or event as the cause.
Sure if one person is wilfully trying to sabotage a flight
or trying to kill someone with his car the cause is clear.

>IMHO a disaster happens when someone does not pay attention. True we
>as humans loose concentration but we made a mistake. It was no accident.

If someone is killed or hurt or when there is substantial damage,
you got an accident. If a contributing factor is loosing concentration,
it's still an accident. But why did the person loose concentration?

>Here in Texas a eighty year old man just killed the second rider
>backing out of the same driveway. Is that still an accident?

Someone was killed, there's your accident. But what was the cause?
The guy might have been too old (read mentally and/or physically unfit)
to safely drive his car. Sure he can be partially held responsible
for that fact, but perhaps also the organisation that allowed him
to drive that car. Or his doctor. Or perhaps the manufacturer for
his car for creating a very big visual dead corner, or his neighbour
for growing a large bush next to his driveway, able to exactly block
out a motorcycle. Perhaps a combination of everything? Even then the
80 year old guy might be held responsible for that fact that he has
to take his physical, mental, car and environmental limitations into
account when leaving the driveway. Making sure he backs out slow and
doublechecks his rear and side area hidden by the cars frame and bush.

Or maybe, indeed like you suggest, it is just a case of one persons
carelesness? Used to look once over his shoulder for the past 20
years worked for him, that perhaps careless routine might have
contributed to the unfortunate death of the rider as well....

But how about the contribution of the motorcycle rider in the accident?
Did he ride close to the curb, hiding himself from the driveways, not
allowing himself any buffer to see and escape, perhaps not realizing
that the small size of his bike is easily hidden by trees, car headrests
or dead corners? Did he ride too fast for the circumstances? If you want
to make policy to try and prevent accidents you have to look at all the
circumstances and causes that contributed. Not to try and look for ONE
thing to blame, sue, convict or destroy. Sad enough the current US
society is too much focussed on searching for blame victims, fed by
some idea that mistakes from humans are always intentional and that
accidents can always be blamed on one person. Just want to bring some
nuance to the subject...

Emile
www.piloot.com

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