Journalists Covering Car Crashes Absolve The Driver

The Columbia Journalism Review report explains how the media (and thereby police) fail to properly cover traffic collisions.

#CRASHNOTACCIDENT

“A middle-aged man was fatally struck by a truck.” If we read traffic crash reporting articles more critically, we can see a pattern.  The report avoids naming the driver of the vehicle, or may not refer to any driver at all.  Very often the incident is described in terms that presuppose innocence on the part of the driver, with built-in excuses such as, “it was dark and the pedestrian was not wearing reflective clothing.”  This contributes to the worsening problem of traffic injuries and fatalities, and car culture: that roads were designed for and belong to cars.

When covering car crashes, be careful not to blame the victim

By Meg Dalton, APRIL 4, 2018

“She ran into traffic. He was wearing dark clothing. They didn’t use the crosswalk. In the aftermath of crashes between drivers and vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians and cyclists, there’s a tendency to blame the victim. It’s just one way the media fails to properly cover traffic collisions, according to a new report from MacEwan University”

Read about it:

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/when-covering-car-crashes-be-careful-not-to-blame-the-victim.php