Wednesday 5 June 2013

A Culture of Responsibility

I've described in my previous blog my thoughts on accidents. Simply put, when it comes to road incidents, accidents don't happen. There are suggestions from some that this assertion might be too simplistic. However, I had a reason for making that assertion.  I wanted to lead on to the issue of culpability.

I'm no lawyer and I'd even go so far as to say I am no armchair lawyer (though there are plenty on the comment sections of my YouTube videos). So first let's look at a simple definition of what culpability is. A quick Google of the definition of culpability brings up the following:

Culpability is a measure of the degree to which an agent, such as a person, can be held morally or legally responsible. Culpability marks the dividing line between moral evil, like murder, for which someone may be held responsible and natural evil, like earthquakes, for which no one can be held responsible.
Ok. I'll hold my hand up and admit that this text is taken from Wikipeda. Sorry. However, looking around, this seems to be a reasonable and simple explanation of what it defines. It defines responsibility or the degree to which someone can be held responsible for some act.

This is an incredibly important concept to grasp when trying to understand what is currently going wrong with the British justice system. Judges as I've suggested earlier are prone to call incidents, accidents. Unfortunately by using this term the following equation applys:

Accident = No culpability

This is the very root of the issue with the word accident. People can argue (and are arguing) that there might or might not be outlandish situations where the word accident is appropriate, but that misses the point completely. What I am suggesting goes deeper than that. I'm suggesting that rather than argue this point (and yes I know I did that in the last blog, but you have to put up with my thought processes...) is to completely remove the use of the word accident and replace it with incident.

This has a profound effect on the above equation. It becomes:

Incident = Culpability to be determined

Now as someone has pointed out on my last post there probably is a very rare instance which we could call an accident. That is, someone of good health just happens to have a completely unexpected medical emergency that results in complete loss of control and the car  which results in hitting a cyclist. This could be labelled an unfortunate incident. In this situation:

Incident = No Culpability

What about the situation I mentioned in my previous blog where a child unintentionally dropped a nail on the road, bursting a car tyre which then resulted in the car colliding with a cyclist? 

Incident = No Culpability

What about the case where a bale of hay falls off a tractor, hitting a cyclist and killing them:

Incident = Culpable, but level to be determined by the courts

Effectively, by removing the word accident from every road incident we force the question to be asked as to why it happened, who was at fault and, when that has been determined, what is the level of culpability. As things stand at the moment the word accident gets in the way and blocks this whole process and biases it towards letting the faulty party off.

Of course there are those that will suggest that I am asking for a 'blame culture'. Not at all. In fact, the word blame doesn't even enter the argument. We need a culture where people take responsibility for their actions, especially when they are in charge of a potentially dangerous lump of metal.

It's time we had a Culture of Responsibility.



8 comments:

  1. It might perhaps have been easier to have started with the dictionary definition of 'accident' and saved yourself the trouble of setting up the straw man argument that there are no accidents, especially since you end up not using it.

    RoSPA would not, I think, agree with your formulation that "accident = no culpability". If that were true then the Prevention of Accidents part would be an oxymoron. Accidents would be, by definition, unpreventable. Similarly, air accident and marine accident investigators would certainly not accept that "accident = no culpability". Neither would the Health and Safety Executive. Each of these bodies refer to accidents in broader terms, consistent with the dictionary definition of accidents as damaging or injurious events that are unplanned or unintentional, without ever implying that there is no fault. Indeed, the whole reason for their existence is to understand and avoid accidents.

    It may be that common usage has led to some misunderstanding that calling something an 'accident' means that there is no blame but that is wrong. Personally, I blame Elvis Costello. Saying that something is an 'accident' only means that the incident was unplanned or unintended. You can still ask how an accident happened, who, if anyone, is to blame and what can be done to avoid it being repeated.

    So, we don't need to do away with the word, although I'd accept your basic point that framing events as 'incidents' rather than 'accidents' does away with any potential ambiguity. Although it also upsets people when they see, for instance, collisions involving cars and bicycles referred to in neutral terms like 'collision' and 'incident'. Certainly we should have a culture of responsibility where people should consider their own role in the incidents they are involved in and how these might be avoided. I wouldn't see that as something restricted to people in charge of cars but a more general culture involving all road users.

    (Steven - instography)

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    1. If only people read dictionaries the world would indeed be a safer place. Unfortunately, experience has shown and continues to show that not even judges, who you would expect to understand the true meaning of the word seem to mis-understand it. If the word is mis-understood and through its use the word promotes bias and that blocks the process that I have described above, which I am sure it does, then a simple solution is to drop its use.

      It is interesting though that you mention RoSPA. The definition of accident that they use is:

      An unplanned, uncontrolled event which has led to or could have led to injury to people, damage to plant, machinery or the environment and/or some other loss.

      I'd suggest that if indeed drivers are not in 'control' of their vehicles and are not properly forward 'planning' then accidents, sorry, incidents will happen....

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    2. * If only people read dictionaries the world would indeed be a safer place.

      I assume you're trying to be ironic but actually, I think you're right.

      * Unfortunately, experience has shown and continues to show that not even judges, who you would expect to understand the true meaning of the word seem to mis-understand it.

      I don't have any evidence of how judges have misused "accident", certainly not in any systematic way that would suggest that the problem lies with the word rather than with an attitudinal bias of some judges or sherriffs who seem to exhibit a pattern of judgement and sentencing unduly favourable to motorists. The distinction matters.

      * If the word is mis-understood and through its use the word promotes bias and that blocks the process that I have described above, which I am sure it does, then a simple solution is to drop its use.

      I agreed with this.

      * It is interesting though that you mention RoSPA. The definition of accident that they use is:

      An unplanned, uncontrolled event which has led to or could have led to injury to people, damage to plant, machinery or the environment and/or some other loss.

      I'd suggest that if indeed drivers are not in 'control' of their vehicles and are not properly forward 'planning' then accidents, sorry, incidents will happen....

      * Indeed, that is the both the precursor and practical outcome of an accident. It's not something peculiar to drivers. It applies to cyclists and pedestrians. I'm a little surprised you endorse it. It is, I imagine, one of the strongest arguments against the concept of strict liability. To be honest, your whole argument about responsibility and culpability argues against the notion of strict liability, which I'd presumed you would support.

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    3. magnatom paraphrase: "If drivers are not in 'control' of their vehicles and are not forward 'planning' then incidents will happen."

      anonymous: "It is, I imagine, one of the strongest arguments against the concept of strict liability."

      Eh? If I rear-end another car through lack of control and forward planning then I have to accept the strict liability my actions engender. Inculcating concepts of responsbilty and culpability could form part of the toolkit in minimising the chance of an incident, but this minimisation process does not let the agents in an incident off the hook.

      anon2

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    4. As I understand it, in civil law strict liability establishes a hierarchy of culpability in advance of any incident. It presupposes that in an incident involving, say, a cyclist and a motorist that the motorist is to be held liable unless he (and it's usually a he) can prove otherwise.

      A culture of responsibility and the general tenor of magnatom's post is different. In arguing against the idea that an accident assumes no culpability he seems to be proposing that we examine incidents and establish who might be at fault. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what he is getting at in his post but that's how it reads to me.

      If I'm read him correctly then the idea that we examine each incident with no preconceptions would argue against the concept of strict liability, which begins with a preconception of its own.

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  2. Just as I read this I'm also looking at the latest Spokes newsletter and Cycle Law Scotland insert explaining the concept in Roman Law (which is a key area of difference between Scotland and England for many legal issues) of the notion of fault and culpability but equally one of no-fault with linked liability. The latter is where a person is held liable but not for the failure to display the diligence of acting with due care and responsibility, but because they are in control of a potential source of danger to the lives, health and property of others. I am told that in legal terms this is called strict liability, but it equates to the presumption that if you are using a chainsaw, gun, a car, or any other item that can cause injury of damage, and that injury or damage ARE caused, then without any excuses or arguments you carry a liability for that event and its outcomes REGARDLESS of whether you are at fault. After all if you had not been driving a car but making your journey on foot or a bicycle instead than the person you 'clipped' (to use a currently common 'excuse') might still be alive or less seriously injured. It was your choice to use a car that caused the severity of injury and damage and for that you carry a liability nem con jimmy.

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  3. Oh and I see a rash of short term patching up taking place on the roads which will feature in the Glasgow Road Race later this month. Classic has been a rapid laying of a flash coat of 6mm surfacing tarmac, whiuch neatly covered over the street ironwork (manholes etc) which have now been dug out and a new patch laid to remake the surface again. In their current state they are a serious hazard for cyclists (but no warning signs for raised manholes)and when completed that repaired repair, will have joints which present a weakened road surface ready to fall apart come next winter or possibly even earlier.

    In 2001 I broke my hip when I landed on the road, and decelerated from around 20mph to 0mph - the same hole continued to reappear for at least 10 years after the patch repairs failed

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  4. I thought the police (down here in England at least) changed their terminology to prefer RTC over RTA, i.e. Road Traffic Collision (a simple statement of fact) versus Road Traffic Accident (a statement that can imply non-culpability).

    However, I'm not convinced where I heard this, nor that it is actually used.

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