No accidents

Public health types have for years shunned the word “accident” when describing unintentional injuries such as those from motor vehicle crashes. As first pointed out by Theodore Doege in 1978, we shouldn't call most injuries “accidents.” To do so implies that they are random occurrences that could not have been foreseen or prevented.

We know today that most unintentional injuries (the preferred term) can be prevented, or at least made less likely. For this reason, the first editor of BMJ USA, Ron Davis, worked …