Car Crash or Car Accident?

Insurance companies love to talk about “accidents”, because that word implies that your injury was nobody’s fault.  Insurance company lawyers like to use the word “accident” because they hope the jury will start to believe that the “accident” was not anybody’s fault.  In reality, an “accident” is usually caused by someone who wasn’t paying attention.

In casual conversation, we call them “accidents” too, because that’s how people talk.  But when we’re talking to a jury, or an insurance adjuster, we prefer to call them “car crashes” or “wrecks”, or “collisions”, because it turns out that, usually, they were somebody’s fault.  When we are talking among friends, this language does not matter much.  But when we are in front of a jury, the choice of words can matter a lot.  If you have been in a collision, you might start noticing that you get the different reactions from people if you call it a “crash” than if you call it an “accident.”