Robin Abcarian: Why do so many Americans die 'accidentally'? The answer may surprise you
Sometimes a book comes along that changes the way you think about the world. I'm questioning my acceptance of the word "accident" after reading Jessie Singer's "There Are No Accidents: The Deadly Rise of Injury and Disaster â Who Profits and Who Pays the Price."
"Around 170,000 people will die by accident next year. I can tell you this because around 170,000 people died by accident last year, and not much is going to change," writes Singer. "When we call something an accident, we feel better at once, and at once, we fail to prevent it from happening again."
Singer, a New York journalist and author, was moved to investigate the history of "accidents" (she by a drunken driver while riding on a Hudson River bike path in Manhattan. The driver mistook the bike path for the road, which was not a rare occurrence. At many points, the path was accessible to cars.
