Media Watch

It takes a special kind of callousness to say that pedestrians are making city streets dangerous by wearing black. And yet, that's exactly what the Seattle Times did this weekend.

Perhaps you saw video on social media this week showing hundreds of teenagers riding bikes, popping wheelies on a Philadelphia expressway. It was an unauthorized freeway takeover that ought to have brought a smile to even the sourest face.

Earlier this year, the NYPD adopted a policy to stop using the term "accident" to describe traffic collisions. The San Francisco police department made similar changes a few months later. The problem with the term "accident," of course, is that it implies no one was at fault -- that traffic injuries and deaths are just random, unpreventable occurrences. It's part of a cultural permissiveness toward dangerous driving, which in turn contributes to the loss of life.