“Language matters”: Police phasing out ‘accident’ term
New analysis ahead of a national drink-drive campaign reveals police phasing out of ‘accident’ is almost complete, but highlights ‘absent driver’ language that impacts road danger perceptions is still common.
The fresh research revealed that while forces have largely phased out the word ‘accident’, more than two thirds (70%) of police news stories still refer to vehicles as participants in crashes, while almost a quarter (22%) describe vehicles as ‘acting’ in those collisions.
“As emergency services, our choice of language plays a vital role in shaping public understanding of road collisions and their causes,” said Dan Quin, Chief Fire Officer for Surrey Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) and National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) Lead for Road Safety and Road Rescue. “By adopting more precise terminology, we help highlight the responsibility of drivers and raise awareness about the dangers on our roads.”
Ahead of Operation Limit’s launch on 1 December, the National Police Chiefs Council’s (NPCC) roads policing lead, Jo Shiner, praised forces for improving their use of language concerning road collisions. However, there are still areas for improvement and a new handbook, published this week, aims to help continue those improvements.
Research, conducted by the author of the UK’s Road Collision Reporting Guidelines, and funded by the Foundation for Integrated Transport, analysed 227 press releases from 45 police forces across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as using Freedom of Information requests, and found use of ‘accident’ is now the exception, rather than the rule – appearing just eight times, generally as apparent ‘slips of the tongue’ in quotes from officers.
However among areas for improvement are language describing vehicles, rather than drivers, as participants in collisions, with more extreme examples describing vehicles ‘attempting to drive the wrong way’, ‘intentionally swerving’ or even ‘acting suspiciously’. Typical examples include ‘a collision involving a pedestrian and a Mercedes’. Research shows this focuses audience attention, and blame, towards those injured in a collision, by as much as 30%. Simply adding the terms ‘being driven’, or ‘driver’ to a sentence can create a more balanced public understanding of collisions.
Jo Shiner, NPCC roads policing lead, said: “I am incredibly supportive of these Road Collision Reporting Guidelines because we know how important using the right language at the right time is, not just for accurate reporting, but also of course, for victims, families, friends and communities.
“A key pillar in the NPCC Roads Policing Strategy is about ‘Changing Minds’. Language matters if we are to change minds and inform the public of the truly devastating consequences death and injury has on our roads every day. It is also important to ensure anyone with information that can help a police investigation can come forward with confidence and therefore how we describe a collision, and all of the elements involved in it, is vital to securing that public support.”
In total 49 of 227 police press releases analysed, 22% included wider collision statistics relating to a sentencing outcome or operation. This added context helps audiences understand collisions are not isolated incidents, but part of predictable and preventable trends that contribute to road danger, such as speeding, distracted driving and drink and drug driving1.
The research grouped police press releases into four main categories: collision news, sentencing news, operations and initiatives, and tributes. Collision news reports tended to feature the most ‘active vehicle’ language, and lacked context on wider collision trends. While understandable in the immediate aftermath of a collision, forces can improve accuracy and clarity within time, resource and legal constraints, and the new handbook features some examples of more balanced wording to use in communications. It also suggests ways to quickly add general context about wider collision trends using publicly-available data.
The Road Collision Reporting Guidelines were published in 2021 following a public consultation. The Guidelines have the support of the National Police Chiefs Council and individual forces across the UK. However, Freedom of Information requests, conducted as part of this research, revealed just five police forces have formally adopted the Guidelines (Greater Manchester, Gwent, Northamptonshire, South Yorkshire and Warwickshire), and just one is using them in practice.
The report also seeks to celebrate and share good practice in public communications. South Yorkshire added context by highlighting the link between a lack of insurance and other criminal behaviour, while Surrey underlined the significant role speeding and dangerous driving play in the “Fatal 5” – the five most common contributory factors to fatal collisions. Avon and Somerset pointed out that a third of collisions, including 12 deaths on its roads within a year, involved drink or drugs. This context can change by 100% audiences’ understanding of how road crashes happen and what the solutions are1.
Warwickshire Police adopted the Guidelines in 2020 and have tried to integrate them in-house and with external partners. The partnership is also looking to replace assets like the SLOW ACCIDENT signs used at the roadside.
Dan Quin, Chief Fire Officer for Surrey Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) and National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) Lead for Road Safety and Road Rescue, said: “This important research highlights how the language we use around road collisions can have a profound impact on public perception and safety. As emergency services, our choice of language plays a vital role in shaping public understanding of road collisions and their causes. By adopting more precise terminology, we help highlight the responsibility of drivers and raise awareness about the dangers on our roads. At Surrey Fire and Rescue Service and through the NFCC, we are committed to improving safety by ensuring our communications reflect the serious and preventable nature of these incidents. Clear and accurate reporting is essential to changing mindsets and ultimately saving lives.”
Laura Laker, journalist (and CIN correspondent), authored the Guidelines and conducted the research, with funding from the Foundation from Integrated Transport. She said: “Media descriptions of road collisions, particularly those involving pedestrians or cyclists, tend to be unbalanced, describing a victim first, and the person behind the wheel of a vehicle later, and sometimes not at all. Pedestrian casualties are depicted as isolated tragedies, cycling casualties as typical, while erasing the presence of drivers in collisions. News outlets commonly copy their use of language from police press releases verbatim.
“In more than a year working on this project I’ve met with blue light service staff committed to best practice, as well as services who still have further to go. Our emergency services are under a number of pressures and I’m grateful to all who engaged with me. It is encouraging to see an almost total absence of the word ‘accident’ in their communications – apart from what appear to be slips of the tongue when officers provide quotes – but this research shows there is room for improvement.
“When describing the mechanics of collisions police can dramatically improve balance by simply mentioning a driver, rather than just their vehicle, early on in the story, and the wider collision trends that impact communities. Crashes are not accidental, random or isolated – they concern people, infrastructure and systems, which can change. It’s great to see the language professionals use start to reflect this, and I hope the new reports help make even greater strides toward a shared goal of shifting thinking around road collisions.”
This research is aimed at helping police, professional bodies and their press offices implement the Guidelines (available at www.rc-rg.com), but can be used by anyone who communicates on road collisions.
Thanks go to the Foundation for Integrated Transport’s Alastair Hanton Memorial Fund for funding this stage of the Road Collision Reporting Guidelines project. Co-Pilot, Project EDWARD, Fusion Media, RoadPeace, the Road Victims Trust, PACTS, and Professor Rachel Aldred of Westminster University’s Active Travel Academy have also assisted, as have staff, former and current, from blue light services across the UK.
CIN Comment: Reporting and language matter hugely, with consequential ramifications for the safety of road users as outlined by the experts above. The accurate use of language is no less important for the industry specifically too: Currently the sector is pushing back against unfair and inaccurate reporting relating to eBikes and fires, with the lack of distinction on what defines an eBike arguably posing an active threat to the commercial future of that sector. More broadly, CIN’s bike shop research has revealed that many retailers recognise how misreporting and poor language choices in the media and elsewhere put people off cycling, with all the commercial, public health and environmental implications that has.
