There seems to be some conflict with how to define "counterfactual". Merriam-Webster defines it as "contrary to fact" [1], so that comes down to a statement being either true or false. But the way I'm using it (and the research my work is based off) aligns more with the Cambridge dictionary usage: "thinking about what did not happen but could have happened, or relating to this kind of thinking" [2]. Further, Stanford Philosophy states, "Modal discourse concerns alternative ways things can be, e.g., what might be true, what isn’t true but could have been, what should be done. This entry focuses on counterfactual modality which concerns what is not, but could or would have been." [3]
> If you have word from the police that the driver was not found to have any alcohol or if the cyclist wasn't wearing a helmet, those are simply facts, not counterfactuals.
I do believe these are counterfactuals, consistent with definitions from [2] and [3]. For example, if a bicyclist is hit and killed and the news article states the fact he wasn't wearing a helmet, sometimes it feels like the article is insinuating that if the bicyclist had been wearing a helmet, he would have survived. Of course, we cannot know that without investigating how fast the driver was going, how heavy the colliding vehicle was, etc. Some of those crashes are simply unsurvivable. The article espouses a "what could have been" thought. Please feel free to disagree, but provide links so I can read more.
> You can't logically call a pedestrian hit an accident until other hypotheses have been ruled out
I agree, but it seems that journalists take a different view. They see "crash" as intentional (i.e. you used your vehicle to murder someone), and that's why they use the word "accident". The way I see it, accident implies the incident was unforeseeable and unpreventable. I also think "accident" requires a higher burden of proof: just like all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares, I think all accidents are crashes, but not all crashes are accidents. In the absence of a conclusive police investigation demonstrating complete unavoidability, the word accident should not be used.
Your counterfactual explanation makes sense in the helmet example, but I think most people wouldn't be able to figure out that connection without such an explanation. Even if it's correct, it's still confusing. For example, I can't figure out what the relevant counterfactual is in the alcohol example.
That's not to say that these are purely value-neutral facts, it still makes sense for them to be called out by this tool. I wish I had a better term for them though, rather than just complaining about the current label.
I think the issue is this: there is a bias when certain news sources only mention facts about what drivers did right (like not being impaired) and about what pedestrians or cyclists did wrong (like not wearing a helmet).
We cannot easily detect this pattern of bias from just a sample of one article from the given source, however, even from one article, there can be a hint of this bias. For instance, a statement about the impairment level of the driver is not made, but the status about the bicycle helmet is made.
To avoid, or at least reduce biases, the reporter has to have a standard template of all relevant fact types, fill it in with everything that is known and then report on everything. If the cyclist was wearing a helmet, report that; if not also report that.
(The available facts may be biased, like what the police and other on-scene responders take in and communicate.)
By the same token though, everyone on this discussion is jumping to "we must reduce speeds in cities" without doing any analysis of whether the collision would be survivable at the lower speed they are proposing. They just assume they don't need to because they have the moral high ground.
I don't think that's quite fair - the relationship between the severity of injuries to pedestrians and cyclists and speed of impact is so well established that it basically does go without saying...
Obviously there are other factors (size of the vehicle, whether it scoops somebody up over the bonnet or down under the wheels, whether the driver is following the speed limit or speeding etc. etc.), and there are other policy options that can also help increase safety, like separating cyclists and cars with curbs, barriers, medians, etc. But I don't think there is any controversy to the assertion that reducing speed on city/suburban streets does reduce accidents and the severity of accidents...
There seems to be some conflict with how to define "counterfactual". Merriam-Webster defines it as "contrary to fact" [1], so that comes down to a statement being either true or false. But the way I'm using it (and the research my work is based off) aligns more with the Cambridge dictionary usage: "thinking about what did not happen but could have happened, or relating to this kind of thinking" [2]. Further, Stanford Philosophy states, "Modal discourse concerns alternative ways things can be, e.g., what might be true, what isn’t true but could have been, what should be done. This entry focuses on counterfactual modality which concerns what is not, but could or would have been." [3]
> If you have word from the police that the driver was not found to have any alcohol or if the cyclist wasn't wearing a helmet, those are simply facts, not counterfactuals.
I do believe these are counterfactuals, consistent with definitions from [2] and [3]. For example, if a bicyclist is hit and killed and the news article states the fact he wasn't wearing a helmet, sometimes it feels like the article is insinuating that if the bicyclist had been wearing a helmet, he would have survived. Of course, we cannot know that without investigating how fast the driver was going, how heavy the colliding vehicle was, etc. Some of those crashes are simply unsurvivable. The article espouses a "what could have been" thought. Please feel free to disagree, but provide links so I can read more.
> You can't logically call a pedestrian hit an accident until other hypotheses have been ruled out
I agree, but it seems that journalists take a different view. They see "crash" as intentional (i.e. you used your vehicle to murder someone), and that's why they use the word "accident". The way I see it, accident implies the incident was unforeseeable and unpreventable. I also think "accident" requires a higher burden of proof: just like all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares, I think all accidents are crashes, but not all crashes are accidents. In the absence of a conclusive police investigation demonstrating complete unavoidability, the word accident should not be used.
[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/counterfactual [2] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/counterf... [3] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/counterfactuals/