Calling all traffic collisions accidents is misleading. There are few true accidents, as in an event that is unavoidable. If a driver has a stroke or has a well-maintained tire blowout due to a manufacturing defect, that's an accident and I agree it doesn't make sense to punish the driver.
In the majority of traffic collisions the driver made choices that contributed to the incident. For example, if you speed at night on a rural highway chances are that you are outdriving your headlights. This means by the time an object in the road is illuminated by your lights it's too late to stop your car without hitting it.
The problem is that we Americans are so dependent on driving that taking away or denying someone a license is paramount to denying them the ability to commute to work or shop for groceries. Driving is a serious activity that demands care and attention but making it an undeniable right has led many to treat it trivially. The number of distracted drivers on the road is unreal.
> Calling all traffic collisions accidents is misleading.
Right. In most US states when you drive an emergency vehicle (such as, in my case, a fire engine or ambulance) you are required to take a course called EVIP - Emergency Vehicle Incident Prevention. Among other things, this course serves as a partial exemption for a CDL, and discusses other laws of the road with respect to emergency vehicles (such as the fact that even an ambulance with lights and sirens on has to stop for a school bus).
But... to your point, the course used to be called EVAP - Emergency Vehicle Accident Prevention - but was specifically changed to recognize that accidents are not preventable, but a cause of circumstance outside control, and that most collisions are in fact "incidents", not "accidents".
In the majority of traffic collisions the driver made choices that contributed to the incident. For example, if you speed at night on a rural highway chances are that you are outdriving your headlights. This means by the time an object in the road is illuminated by your lights it's too late to stop your car without hitting it.
The problem is that we Americans are so dependent on driving that taking away or denying someone a license is paramount to denying them the ability to commute to work or shop for groceries. Driving is a serious activity that demands care and attention but making it an undeniable right has led many to treat it trivially. The number of distracted drivers on the road is unreal.