Re: Incident/Accident?

["Jim Hardeman" <Jim_Hardeman@MAIL.DNR.STATE.GA.US>]

Ruth —



So you're saying that the infamous "WIPP cow incident" a few years back should actually be called the "WIPP cow accident", since it involved a death, albeit a bovine one? <grin> I seem to remember also that there was sufficient damage to the tractor that it had to be towed ... but I've never heard that event referred to as an "accident".



As an aside, the transportation industry (and perhaps DOT) have been working with traffic reporters here in Atlanta to get them not to use the word "accident" when referring to vehicle crashes. I seem to recall them saying that "accident" implied that the event was totally unpredictable and unavoidable, and that neither of these definitions applied to vehicle crashes. This concept might also have some application here.



My $0.02 worth ...



Jim Hardeman

Jim_Hardeman@mail.dnr.state.ga.us



>>> <RuthWeiner@AOL.COM> 1/24/2002 11:53:19 >>>

In transportation, we use the DOT definitiions of "incident" and "accident" 

(paraphrased below":



Incident:  any event that interferes with routine normal transportation from 

the origin to the destination of a shipment.



Accident: a transportation incident involving death, injury, or sufficient 

damage to the vehicle that the vehicle cannot move under its own power. (For 

rail accidents there is also some provision about lost workdays following 

injury.)



So interestingly, if there is only damage to the cargo, it's just an 

incident.  Also, most accidents don't impact the cargo at all (the most 

interesting in this respect was a light airplane crash in which all five 

people in the airplane died and the radioisotope Type A package the plane was 

carrying excaped unscathed).  We are very careful to explain these 

definitions in environmental assessments.     



Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.

ruthweiner@aol.com



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