Accident

An accident is an unintended, normally unwanted event that was not deliberately caused by humans.^[1][2] The term accident implies that the event may have been caused by unrecognized or unaddressed risks. Many researchers, insurers and attorneys who specialize in unintentional injury prefer to avoid using the term accident, and focus on conditions that increase risk of severe injury or that reduce injury incidence and severity.^[3] For example, when a tree falls down during a wind storm, its fall may not have been directly caused by human error, but the tree's type, size, health, location, or improper maintenance may have contributed to the result. Most car crashes are the result of dangerous behavior and not purely accidents; however, English speakers started using that word in the mid-20th century as a result of media manipulation by the US automobile industry.^[4] Accidental deaths were much less frequent before high-powered machinery began to spread with the Industrial Revolution of the late 1700s.^[5]

In recent years worldwide, the most-common causes of accidental deaths are road traffic and falls. Many different theoretical models have been proposed for analyzing accidents, but no single model has yet proved sufficient for these often-complex events.