Don't blame the car!

A Torquecars member recently said to me, "have you noticed what happens when a man stalls a car?"

I hadn't, but he explained that, "all men will glare at the dashboard as if to see why the car decided it will cut the engine."

Most women drivers will just restart the car without the glare but there is something in the male ego which means they cannot accept responsibility for their errors (not that men make errors!)

This got me thinking back to the days when I was chained to a desk in an insurance office and the theory holds true - it is always the car which is blamed for everything. Here are some excerpts from accident claim forms and they all have one common theme.

The car skidded on ice.
I braked and the car skidded into the other guy.
The car swerved off the road.
The car veered off the road.
The car went out of control.
I couldn't see the other car as it was obscured by my Windscreen pillar.
The cars windows were steamed up.
The car stalled.
The car pulled out.
The car hit the (wall,pedestrian, tree etc...)

I could go on all day with these but it goes to show how reluctant we are to admit blame or responsibility. The common theme in all the above scenarios was the driver was not controlling the car withing the limits of the road.

The word accident should be removed as well as this implies an unavoidable or unpredictable event. This is simply not accurate as nearly all crashes (this is what I'm going to call accidents!) could be avoided if people paid more attention to what was going on around them.