Apr 28, 2008

Letters

Traffic collisions

Dear Editor: In "SUV crash" (Letters, Wednesday), Margaret Pye decried the use of the word "accident" to describe the horrific crash last May at a Belmont middle school, which was caused by the driver mistaking the accelerator for the brake and which sent 13 students to area hospitals.

She wrote, "I object to anyone calling this an 'accident.' That word should be reserved for events that can't possibly be avoided."

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (www.nhtsa.dot.gov/) in 1997 issued the following resolution for its "Crashes are Not Accidents" campaign:

"Whereas changing the way we think about events and the words we use will affect the way we behave, our goal is to eliminate the word "accident" from the realm of unintentional injury on the highway and across the nation;

Whereas motor vehicle crashes and injuries are predictable, preventable events, continued use of the word "accident" promotes the concept that these events are outside of human influence or control. In fact, they are predictable results of specific actions;
Whereas we can identify their causes and take action to avoid them, these are not "acts of God," but predictable results of the laws of physics;

Whereas, use of the word "accident" works against bringing the appropriate resources to bear on this enormous problem, it allows the idea that the resulting injuries are an unexpected part of life;

Now, therefore, we ... , in recognition of this life saving and injury preventing opportunity, do hereby proclaim a national campaign: "Crashes Aren't Accidents"
NHTSA recommends other words, such as "crashes, collisions or incidents" be used to describe the cause of more than 42,000 annual road deaths and in excess of 3 million injuries.

All of us can make this simple change in our vocabulary - and it hopefully will make us better drivers as well.

Irvin Dawid,
Palo Alto

Online medical data

Dear Editor: The Associated Press article on doctors' reluctance to use e-mail ("Doctors not hitting the reply button," Thursday) would have been a good place for a sidebar on the Palo Alto Medical Foundation's online service, PAMFOnline. With a free PAMFOnline account, patients can see some of their medical records, request appointments and prescription renewals, see (and graph) test results, and access health news and information. For an additional annual fee (currently $60), you can communicate online with your doctors and with advice nurses. This service has saved me many hours. I am not an employee of PAMF, but a patient.

Ed Glazier,
Palo Alto