Respectfully, I think you're demonstrating the sort of thinking the corpus of research surrounding this seeks to shine a spotlight on: blaming the victim, rather than focusing on safe and forgiving design.
Should our built environment be such that falling down in public should end your life? Do people deserve to die simply because they want to cross the street? Why do we design residential neighborhoods where parents are afraid of letting their kids play outside due to traffic? Do drivers of 4,000+ lbs of steel and glass bear greater responsibility than pedestrians and bicyclists.
In the article you mention with the woman falling into the street, the article makes no mention of street design. Further, emphasis is placed on the victim, but nothing is said of the driver.
- What is the speed limit on that road? Fast-moving vehicles will require faster reaction time and longer stopping distances. Maybe areas that mix traffic with VRUs need to be reworked.
- Did the driver appear to make any effort to stop? If so, why doesn't the article mention it if they already have video evidence? If not, did the driver not see the woman? Was the driver distracted?
- Did poor illumination contribute to this collision? (If so, that's a design element: street lighting).
> I gather that the intent is not to make the reporting more neutral or accurate, but to change the framing in a direction that vision zero finds more appealing.
I'm posting this to demonstrate my work and seek honest and meaningful criticism to improve the tool and help improve public discourse around a public safety matter that is killing 30k-40k people per year in the U.S., and injuring millions. You can avoid the underhanded and snarky quip.
Calling them "editorial anti-patterns" because they don't frame the discussion how you would like it to be framed is... well, an antipattern in itself.
Let me be clear: Your goal of improving road safety is laudable, and the aspects your tool highlights are conceivably a way to achieve that. But priming visitors to expect "editorial anti-patterns" and then instead presenting "insufficiently biased-to-the-pedestrian" snippets is dishonest.
While there are recommendations in there I fully support (e.g. "highlight systematic problems"), I am particularly put off by repeated suggestions like "the driver hit the cyclist": Unless the driver itself physically made contact with the cyclist, this is between inaccurate and confusing. It sounds like a fist fight broke out when the fundamental happening was someone being injured by sudden contact with a vehicle.
You can still involve the driver in the sentence if needed, but please don't advocate for confusing reporting in the name of unconditionally blaming individuals.
Also, suggestion for an addition: If you want to improve road safety, you could also recommend report on the maintenance status of the vehicle (e.g. were the brakes well-serviced?).
I certainly have a lot more work to do over the next few weeks to improve the tool, and I think much of your comment will be addressed once I place a lot more weight on Framing (see my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28842314).
For your "driver hit the cyclist" example, I would like to avoid confusion that there was a physical altercation like a fist fight between the driver and cyclist. However, I stand by the sentence structure, because I don't want to personify or give agency to vehicles (e.g. "vehicle hit the cyclist") when it's the driver who is in control, and focusing on driver calls into question more thematic elements like distracted driving, speeding, visibility and lighting conditions, etc.
Is there a way you'd recommend rephrasing "driver hit the cyclist" to satisfy both our suggestions?
> Calling them "editorial anti-patterns" because they don't frame the discussion how you would like it to be framed is
To be clear, I'm not trying to force my desired framing on authors or inject bias into articles. I am simply working off of the research I've seen, such as Editorial Patterns in Bicyclist and Pedestrian Crash Reporting [1] and all the other citations in that paper, that there is a very real and measurable effect on the language used in these articles and the readers' perception on blame and preventative measures.
However, I am certainly thinking about the feedback I've received from everyone in this thread.
> If you want to improve road safety, you could also recommend report on the maintenance status of the vehicle (e.g. were the brakes well-serviced?).
That sounds like an interesting idea. I know that vehicle status can contribute to crashes, and legislation has been enacted to improve this. For example, all vehicles now require tire-pressure monitoring system (TPMS) because improper tire pressure was leading to lots of crashes. Back-up cameras are required because people, particularly small children, were being run over when in reverse. States have different requirements for periodic vehicle safety inspections (in New York State where I live it's once per year).
If a crash is being reported involving older vehicles, maybe journalists could mention if those vehicle predate certain safety mandates. For example, vehicles before 2007 in the U.S. may not have TPMS [2]
Should our built environment be such that falling down in public should end your life? Do people deserve to die simply because they want to cross the street? Why do we design residential neighborhoods where parents are afraid of letting their kids play outside due to traffic? Do drivers of 4,000+ lbs of steel and glass bear greater responsibility than pedestrians and bicyclists.
In the article you mention with the woman falling into the street, the article makes no mention of street design. Further, emphasis is placed on the victim, but nothing is said of the driver.
- What is the speed limit on that road? Fast-moving vehicles will require faster reaction time and longer stopping distances. Maybe areas that mix traffic with VRUs need to be reworked.
- Did the driver appear to make any effort to stop? If so, why doesn't the article mention it if they already have video evidence? If not, did the driver not see the woman? Was the driver distracted?
- Did poor illumination contribute to this collision? (If so, that's a design element: street lighting).
> I gather that the intent is not to make the reporting more neutral or accurate, but to change the framing in a direction that vision zero finds more appealing.
I'm posting this to demonstrate my work and seek honest and meaningful criticism to improve the tool and help improve public discourse around a public safety matter that is killing 30k-40k people per year in the U.S., and injuring millions. You can avoid the underhanded and snarky quip.