“It’s not an accident…”

WARNING: The above video may be unsettling for some viewers.

This brutal ad from Australia tells a difficult, but necessary truth: when a driver is speeding, it’s impossible to call any crash, injury, or fatality that results an “accident.”

As Aaron Naparstek writes in his recent essay for TA’s Reclaim:

Though it may sometimes seem otherwise, New York City drivers don’t wake up in the morning intending to harm pedestrians and cyclists. Most crashes are unintentional and “accident” is not an inaccurate word to describe them. But the fact remains: Driver negligence is the number one cause of crashes, and it’s no big surprise—or accident—when negligent driving hurts and kills people on crowded city streets. In fact, our legal system has a word for this type of unintentional killing: “Manslaughter.”

I always am amazed when drivers use the “I didn’t see him!” excuse after hitting a cyclist or pedestrian in New York City.  You’re driving in one of the most densely populated urban environments in the world…what did you expect to see?