RoadPeace’s Post

With annual police Christmas drink and drug driving campaigns underway, new research shows there is progress in shifting collision reporting language, but highlights that there is still plenty of room for improvement. The analysis, conducted by journalist Laura Laker and funded by the Foundation for Integrated Transport, assessed 227 press releases from 45 police forces and found that the use of the word “accident” is now rare, appearing just eight times. However, the report highlights a persistent tendency to refer to vehicles, rather than drivers, as active participants in collisions. This language, seen in 70% of police press releases, frames vehicles as autonomous agents – examples include phrases like “the vehicle attempted to drive the wrong way” – and can divert attention from the role of driver behaviour. Read our full article here: https://buff.ly/3BvkFYB