There are no accidents
by Jessie Singer
Simon & Schuster, 2022
reviewed by Alayne McGregor
The drunk driver. The jaywalking pedestrian. The idiot cyclist, particularly if they don’t wear a helmet. The “accident-prone” worker who doesn’t properly attach their safety harness or follow safety instructions.
It makes us feel good to be able to blame those people when we hear of another death on the road or in a worksite, says author Jessie Singer. It makes that tragedy their problem, not one that would ever affect us.
But that doesn’t solve the underlying cause of those “accidents,” she says. It lets those responsible for dangerous situations off the hook: for example, owners of chemical factories or nuclear plants.
They can blame low-level operators for disasters rather than owning up to the badly designed safety systems, or confusing warning lights, or their decision to locate dangerous facilities near residential areas.
A similar case is when work in a mine or factory or warehouse is sped up so much that it’s impossible to accomplish what’s expected without taking shortcuts. Workers face a choice between risking their lives or getting fired.
She points out that, when automobiles were introduced into U.S. cities, they were considered a danger to people. A driver who hit and killed a child was almost killed by a mob of citizens. But then the automobile companies invented the crime of “jaywalking.” That changed the narrative so that pedestrians would be blamed for being hit by a car, rather than the driver for driving too fast or not avoiding the pedestrian.
It’s not an accident – it’s preventions failing
Singer contends that pure “accidents” – incidents that could not be foreseen or prevented – do not exist. Rather, most of these incidents are a result of the “Swiss cheese” of different preventions failing and of the underlying situation being dangerous. She points to one incident where a black mother needed to cross a fast, multi-lane road to get from a bus stop to her home on the other side. Traffic engineers had decided a pedestrian signal wasn’t warranted at that location because there weren’t enough pedestrians crossing there. So the mother had the choice of dragging three small children 13 minutes each way to the nearest signalized crossing, or crossing against traffic. Tragically, one child was hit by a motorist in the middle of the street. Then the mother was charged.
The book doesn’t just deal with traffic, however. Singer also discusses opioid overdoses, mine collapses, distance to hospitals, and more. In all these cases, she goes beyond physical causes to talk about how underlying racism – especially against black and Indigenous people – and underlying prejudice against low-income people leads to a much higher risk of being in an “accident.” The statistics (taken from the U.S. but likely applicable here) are stark: if you live in a wealthier area and have a comfortable income yourself, you’re not facing the same risks.
We must fix underlying risks, Singer says
Blaming those involved in an “accident” has a basic problem: it doesn’t fix the underlying risks. Singer argues that an attitude which assumes people will make mistakes, and looks for ways to make those mistakes non-lethal, is ultimately more useful than trying to make people act perfectly. Reduce traffic speeds; require that construction workers wear safety harnesses; redesign cars so they minimize injuries to passengers in a crash. Remove dangerous conditions. Even “make the world safe for drunks.”
Also regulate safe practices and ensure that government agencies are not subject to “regulatory capture” by companies who would prefer less-rigorous safety standards.
Singer also argues that larger issues need to be addressed, like heavy, high SUVs that are more likely to kill pedestrians in a collisions; wide, straight multi-lane roads and 85th percentile speed limits, which encourage dangerously fast driving; and climate emergencies that will lead to death from heat stroke.
“Find the nuance in every accident”
“Find the nuance in every accident. Reject the accident described without a systemic explanation. Demand a longer, more detailed story. Ask why the Swiss cheese is stacked the way it is. Every accident is borne of overlaid failures. Find the systems that led to an accident – the big and the small, the personal and the systemic, the design of the road and the racism of vehicular homicide prosecution as well. This is the only way to prevent accidents.”
This book was inspired by the tragic death of a dear friend of Singer’s, who was crushed by a car while riding his bike in New York City. Of course, you would say – a perfect argument for segregating bike lanes. But, in fact, the cyclist was riding on a separated recreational path along a highway.
What happened to him was not his fault. It was caused by the fact that the city did not properly block off car access to the path with permanent metal bollards. There were several places along the path where a confused or drunk driver could turn the wrong way and drive along the path. More cyclists were killed after her friend. Finally, more than a decade later, the bollards were installed after a man drove over 20 people on the path in a terror attack.
I agree with Singer that we need to look at the underlying causes of these “accidents.” But, in my opinion, we also need to ensure we have the correct and complete solutions.
This book is available at the Ottawa Public Library.