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There Are No Accidents
A journalist recounts the surprising history of accidents and reveals how they’ve come to define all that’s wrong with America.
We hear it all the time: “Sorry, it was just an accident.” And we’ve been deeply conditioned to just accept that explanation and move on. But as Jessie Singer argues convincingly: There are no such things as accidents. The vast majority of mishaps are not random but predictable and preventable. Singer uncovers just how the term “accident” itself protects those in power and leaves the most vulnerable in harm’s way, preventing investigations, pushing off debts, blaming the victims, diluting anger, and even sparking empathy for the perpetrators.
As the rate of accidental death skyrockets in America, the poor and people of color end up bearing the brunt of the violence and blame, while the powerful use the excuse of the “accident” to avoid consequences for their actions. Born of the death of her best friend, and the killer who insisted it was an accident, this book is a moving investigation of the sort of tragedies that are all too common, and all too commonly ignored.
In this revelatory book, Singer tracks accidental death in America from turn of the century factories and coal mines to today’s urban highways, rural hospitals, and Superfund sites. Drawing connections between traffic accidents, accidental opioid overdoses, and accidental oil spills, Singer proves that what we call accidents are hardly random. Rather, who lives and dies by an accident in America is defined by money and power. She also presents a variety of actions we can take as individuals and as a society to stem the tide of “accidents”—saving lives and holding the guilty to account.
We hear it all the time: “Sorry, it was just an accident.” And we’ve been deeply conditioned to just accept that explanation and move on. But as Jessie Singer argues convincingly: There are no such things as accidents. The vast majority of mishaps are not random but predictable and preventable. Singer uncovers just how the term “accident” itself protects those in power and leaves the most vulnerable in harm’s way, preventing investigations, pushing off debts, blaming the victims, diluting anger, and even sparking empathy for the perpetrators.
As the rate of accidental death skyrockets in America, the poor and people of color end up bearing the brunt of the violence and blame, while the powerful use the excuse of the “accident” to avoid consequences for their actions. Born of the death of her best friend, and the killer who insisted it was an accident, this book is a moving investigation of the sort of tragedies that are all too common, and all too commonly ignored.
In this revelatory book, Singer tracks accidental death in America from turn of the century factories and coal mines to today’s urban highways, rural hospitals, and Superfund sites. Drawing connections between traffic accidents, accidental opioid overdoses, and accidental oil spills, Singer proves that what we call accidents are hardly random. Rather, who lives and dies by an accident in America is defined by money and power. She also presents a variety of actions we can take as individuals and as a society to stem the tide of “accidents”—saving lives and holding the guilty to account.
Unknown Binding
First published February 15, 2022
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About the author
Jessie Singer
1 book52 followersJessie Singer is a journalist whose writing appears in The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Nation, Bloomberg News, BuzzFeed, New York magazine, The Guardian, and elsewhere. She studied journalism at the Arthur L. Carter School of Journalism at New York University, and under the wing of the late investigative journalist Wayne Barrett.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 202 reviews
March 4, 2022
Many software companies have a rule: on your first week on the job, you must push code to production. That sounds dangerous: someone with 40 hours of experience is not yet skilled enough to avoid bugs in their code! But the reason is simple: there should be enough safeguards in place that even a relative stranger to the company should be able to safely make a change without anything breaking.
What would happen if we applied that philosophy to the rest of our world? Where instead of blaming the new kid for creating a bug, we look at the processes that made it possible for that to happen? Shouldn’t there have been more safeguards to prevent the inevitable?
I read a lot of nonfiction books that feel like they could have been summarized in a Medium article, where 300 pages should have been 60 (or, like, 4). This is not one of those books. Every chapter taught me something new.
The book has a clear bias. I don’t think it’s going to change any minds. It will give a language to people like me, who know there’s something wrong but don’t have the words or data to back it up.
When a neighbor dies riding on a street that we’ve been calling unsafe for years- we know that’s not an accident. Until this book, I have sought retribution: the driver who hit the bicyclist should be punished. But now I see my error: if we knew the road was unsafe, how much can you blame the driver? Is it like blaming the first-week coder? Certainly there should be some punishment…but the punishment doesn’t even enter the equation when it comes to prevention. So I’d rather not focus on the driver at all, maybe?
One note about the bias: there are a lot of statistics in this book. They almost always feel cherry-picked to prove a point. Sometimes we compare numbers per capita, sometimes by total count unnormalized, and it seems to be based on whichever makes the point better. That being said: you can throw out all stats in this book and the point would still be the same, so this didn’t bother me much. (I did wish that the book had more charts and graphs, instead of describing data in text).
TL;DR if you think society should be doing more to prevent predictable accidents, read this book. If you think we should have more monster trucks in our cities, even if it means a few dead kids, maybe skip this one.
What would happen if we applied that philosophy to the rest of our world? Where instead of blaming the new kid for creating a bug, we look at the processes that made it possible for that to happen? Shouldn’t there have been more safeguards to prevent the inevitable?
I read a lot of nonfiction books that feel like they could have been summarized in a Medium article, where 300 pages should have been 60 (or, like, 4). This is not one of those books. Every chapter taught me something new.
The book has a clear bias. I don’t think it’s going to change any minds. It will give a language to people like me, who know there’s something wrong but don’t have the words or data to back it up.
When a neighbor dies riding on a street that we’ve been calling unsafe for years- we know that’s not an accident. Until this book, I have sought retribution: the driver who hit the bicyclist should be punished. But now I see my error: if we knew the road was unsafe, how much can you blame the driver? Is it like blaming the first-week coder? Certainly there should be some punishment…but the punishment doesn’t even enter the equation when it comes to prevention. So I’d rather not focus on the driver at all, maybe?
One note about the bias: there are a lot of statistics in this book. They almost always feel cherry-picked to prove a point. Sometimes we compare numbers per capita, sometimes by total count unnormalized, and it seems to be based on whichever makes the point better. That being said: you can throw out all stats in this book and the point would still be the same, so this didn’t bother me much. (I did wish that the book had more charts and graphs, instead of describing data in text).
TL;DR if you think society should be doing more to prevent predictable accidents, read this book. If you think we should have more monster trucks in our cities, even if it means a few dead kids, maybe skip this one.
March 16, 2023
I think this is the first time non-fiction has made me cry.
Timely, lucid, accessible, comprehensive, humane, compassionate, actionable—everyone should read this, particularly those who work in planning and policy.
Select quotes:
"More than a synonym for a traffic crash or a surprise pregnancy, 'accident' is a euphemism for 'nothing to see here.'" (p. 2)
"One in twenty-four people in the United States will die by accident. And among wealthy nations, the problem is distinctly American." (p. 6)
"The people who tell the story are always the powerful ones, and the powerful ones are rarely the victims." (p. 13)
"Workplace accidents first declined when accidents began to cost employers money, because then, for a corporation, making the workplace safe was cheaper than paying for accidents." (p. 60)
"Accidents in America come in two sizes, relative to likelihood. Most are small and frequent—a drug overdose, a traffic crash, Some are big and rare—an oil spill, a plane crash." (p. 66)
"All accidents are systemic, but to understand some of the systems, we will need to zoom far out from one man falling off an oil rig, or another, flush with cash, taking too much of a drug. Racism is a system, and so is stigmatization, and so is the federal infrastructure budget." (p. 85)
"A speed limit is the perceived safe speed of a road, not the actual risk of traveling that speed on that road." (p. 95)
"Corporations recall products, from Tylenol to Cheerios, all the time—by government force, or voluntarily, in anticipation of government force. Yet guns never are recalled, because they have a unique privilege: no government agency polices their safety. There are no federal standards for gun design." (p. 99)
"Society ostracizes stigmatized people for a characteristic that becomes all-encompassing—a single trait dictates how we judge a whole person. And, importantly, when something goes wrong, the stigmatized, because of their flawed character, are blamed." (p. 109)
"Finding fault in a person smells like justice and feels like a book being closed. It makes sense that we seek it. But failing to prevent the preventable results in a vast and deadly unfairness—and one outcome is the wildly unequal rate at which people are killed by accident because of racism." (p. 129)
"Every human action in a built environment is a product of that environment." (p. 131)
"We need to see accidents from the perspective of those involved, and we especially need to see accidents from the perspective of those harmed." (p. 131)
"In 2019, on average, U.S. drivers killed twenty-one pedestrians every day. Disproportionately, the dead were Latino, Black, and Indigenous. The rate of accidental pedestrian death is 87 percent higher for Latino people, 93 percent higher for Black people, and 171 percent higher for Indigenous people than it is for white people. Black people are more likely to be found at fault walking in the street, less likely to be offered justice if killed there, and more likely to be killed there." (p. 138)
"Throughout history, when the economy was booming, accidental death also peaked. Nationwide, more income inequality means more accidental death." (p. 155)
"Whether we live or die by accident is an economic policy decision." (p. 156)
"We can pay the cost to avoid an accident or pay more for the consequences after an accident—but because we consider these accidents, we rarely do the math." (p. 156)
"Economic geography so strongly affects accidental death rates that people who live in poverty in rich places live longer than equally poor people who live in poor places. Wealth is a risk insulator and poverty is a risk amplifier." (p. 168)
"One of the reasons that we don't spend money to protect people from accidents is the same reason that many Americans blame poor people for their poverty: the human error explanation absolves us of the responsibility. But blaming human error is also a well-documented cognitive bias that helps us see an unjust world as just. This bias—known as the 'just world fallacy'—helps us feel more comfortable in a cruel world by focusing on individual behavior to explain systemic failures and structural inequality. In particular, we zero in on anything that reinforces the belief that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. In short, the fallacy is believing that the world is fair." (p. 169)
"If the people atop the social order believe in poverty as a form of justice, and poor people more often die by accident, then nothing could or should be done about accidents. In fact, by this logic, accidents are good—a righteous punishment for bad actions or weak character." (p. 171)
"The ability to keep the uncontrollable world at bay is quite a power—which is one reason we blame victims most of all: because the dead cannot contest that power." (p. 174)
"Researchers have found that people have a strong urge to agree about who is to blame in any given accident—and that when some outspoken accuser presents blame in public, everyone else tends to support that view. Eyewitness statements influence other eyewitness statements so powerfully that hearing whom someone else blames can change your memory of who you thought was to blame." (p. 179)
"Fixing the problem means there is a problem. Blaming someone means there is no problem at all." (p. 185)
"The chief consequence of blame is the prevention of prevention. In finding fault with a person, the case of any given accident appears closed." (p. 185)
"Putting aside blame is the first step to changing the environments that put us at risk." (p. 188)
"The litigious society is a myth invented by corporations to protect corporations." (p. 238)
"It is an act of love to demand accountability for the dead. And it takes rage to prevent the same accidents from happening again." (p. 245)
"Accidents are not a design problem—we know how to design the built environment to prevent death and injury in accidents. And accidents are not a regulatory problem—we know the regulations that will reduce the accidental death toll. Rather, accidents are a political and social problem. To prevent them, we only need the will to redesign our systems, the courage to confront our worst inclinations, and the strength to rein in the powerful who allow accidents to happen." (p. 250)
"Blame is a food chain. Always look to the top." (p. 255)
"Every accident is born of overlaid failures." (p. 255)
"Today, hundreds of thousands of lives, an uncountable number of life-altering injuries, and the threat of immeasurable environmental destruction rest on our acceptance that blaming the individual is best, that bad things happen to bad people, and that somehow personal responsibility will save us all. But seeing accidents for what they are means refusing to accept anything as an accident anymore. Because nothing is an accident. Nothing ever was." (p. 256)
Timely, lucid, accessible, comprehensive, humane, compassionate, actionable—everyone should read this, particularly those who work in planning and policy.
Select quotes:
"More than a synonym for a traffic crash or a surprise pregnancy, 'accident' is a euphemism for 'nothing to see here.'" (p. 2)
"One in twenty-four people in the United States will die by accident. And among wealthy nations, the problem is distinctly American." (p. 6)
"The people who tell the story are always the powerful ones, and the powerful ones are rarely the victims." (p. 13)
"Workplace accidents first declined when accidents began to cost employers money, because then, for a corporation, making the workplace safe was cheaper than paying for accidents." (p. 60)
"Accidents in America come in two sizes, relative to likelihood. Most are small and frequent—a drug overdose, a traffic crash, Some are big and rare—an oil spill, a plane crash." (p. 66)
"All accidents are systemic, but to understand some of the systems, we will need to zoom far out from one man falling off an oil rig, or another, flush with cash, taking too much of a drug. Racism is a system, and so is stigmatization, and so is the federal infrastructure budget." (p. 85)
"A speed limit is the perceived safe speed of a road, not the actual risk of traveling that speed on that road." (p. 95)
"Corporations recall products, from Tylenol to Cheerios, all the time—by government force, or voluntarily, in anticipation of government force. Yet guns never are recalled, because they have a unique privilege: no government agency polices their safety. There are no federal standards for gun design." (p. 99)
"Society ostracizes stigmatized people for a characteristic that becomes all-encompassing—a single trait dictates how we judge a whole person. And, importantly, when something goes wrong, the stigmatized, because of their flawed character, are blamed." (p. 109)
"Finding fault in a person smells like justice and feels like a book being closed. It makes sense that we seek it. But failing to prevent the preventable results in a vast and deadly unfairness—and one outcome is the wildly unequal rate at which people are killed by accident because of racism." (p. 129)
"Every human action in a built environment is a product of that environment." (p. 131)
"We need to see accidents from the perspective of those involved, and we especially need to see accidents from the perspective of those harmed." (p. 131)
"In 2019, on average, U.S. drivers killed twenty-one pedestrians every day. Disproportionately, the dead were Latino, Black, and Indigenous. The rate of accidental pedestrian death is 87 percent higher for Latino people, 93 percent higher for Black people, and 171 percent higher for Indigenous people than it is for white people. Black people are more likely to be found at fault walking in the street, less likely to be offered justice if killed there, and more likely to be killed there." (p. 138)
"Throughout history, when the economy was booming, accidental death also peaked. Nationwide, more income inequality means more accidental death." (p. 155)
"Whether we live or die by accident is an economic policy decision." (p. 156)
"We can pay the cost to avoid an accident or pay more for the consequences after an accident—but because we consider these accidents, we rarely do the math." (p. 156)
"Economic geography so strongly affects accidental death rates that people who live in poverty in rich places live longer than equally poor people who live in poor places. Wealth is a risk insulator and poverty is a risk amplifier." (p. 168)
"One of the reasons that we don't spend money to protect people from accidents is the same reason that many Americans blame poor people for their poverty: the human error explanation absolves us of the responsibility. But blaming human error is also a well-documented cognitive bias that helps us see an unjust world as just. This bias—known as the 'just world fallacy'—helps us feel more comfortable in a cruel world by focusing on individual behavior to explain systemic failures and structural inequality. In particular, we zero in on anything that reinforces the belief that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. In short, the fallacy is believing that the world is fair." (p. 169)
"If the people atop the social order believe in poverty as a form of justice, and poor people more often die by accident, then nothing could or should be done about accidents. In fact, by this logic, accidents are good—a righteous punishment for bad actions or weak character." (p. 171)
"The ability to keep the uncontrollable world at bay is quite a power—which is one reason we blame victims most of all: because the dead cannot contest that power." (p. 174)
"Researchers have found that people have a strong urge to agree about who is to blame in any given accident—and that when some outspoken accuser presents blame in public, everyone else tends to support that view. Eyewitness statements influence other eyewitness statements so powerfully that hearing whom someone else blames can change your memory of who you thought was to blame." (p. 179)
"Fixing the problem means there is a problem. Blaming someone means there is no problem at all." (p. 185)
"The chief consequence of blame is the prevention of prevention. In finding fault with a person, the case of any given accident appears closed." (p. 185)
"Putting aside blame is the first step to changing the environments that put us at risk." (p. 188)
"The litigious society is a myth invented by corporations to protect corporations." (p. 238)
"It is an act of love to demand accountability for the dead. And it takes rage to prevent the same accidents from happening again." (p. 245)
"Accidents are not a design problem—we know how to design the built environment to prevent death and injury in accidents. And accidents are not a regulatory problem—we know the regulations that will reduce the accidental death toll. Rather, accidents are a political and social problem. To prevent them, we only need the will to redesign our systems, the courage to confront our worst inclinations, and the strength to rein in the powerful who allow accidents to happen." (p. 250)
"Blame is a food chain. Always look to the top." (p. 255)
"Every accident is born of overlaid failures." (p. 255)
"Today, hundreds of thousands of lives, an uncountable number of life-altering injuries, and the threat of immeasurable environmental destruction rest on our acceptance that blaming the individual is best, that bad things happen to bad people, and that somehow personal responsibility will save us all. But seeing accidents for what they are means refusing to accept anything as an accident anymore. Because nothing is an accident. Nothing ever was." (p. 256)
March 26, 2022
I will never look at the environment and how we live in it in the same way. A new critical eye and astonishment at how unsafe and uncaring so much if our world really is.
March 19, 2023
[27 Feb 2023]
This is a powerful and important book. It's one I'd like to recommend everyone read. Because it could change lives.
The title is accurate; that's what the book is about. Singer claims that most unintended injuries -- those events we tend to call accidents -- are predictable and preventable. But by calling them accidents, we eliminate any impetus for changes that might actually prevent them from happening again.
A child runs out into the street and is struck by a car, killing her. An accident, they say. But there are all kinds of factors that resulted in that tragedy. The design of the street that enabled the car to be driving too fast near a residential district. The design of the car that makes it very lethal and makes it hard to see the child. The lack of nearby parks or playgrounds where the child could play more safely. Any or all of these factors could be changed to ensure that another child is not killed, but too often, it's just called an "accident" and nothing changes. And that's just one case.
The author is a journalist so she writes well, clear, compelling, and well organized. And the book is deeply researched, full of example after example, covering all sectors of American life. It's also pretty short and easy to read.
I strongly recommend it.
This is a powerful and important book. It's one I'd like to recommend everyone read. Because it could change lives.
The title is accurate; that's what the book is about. Singer claims that most unintended injuries -- those events we tend to call accidents -- are predictable and preventable. But by calling them accidents, we eliminate any impetus for changes that might actually prevent them from happening again.
A child runs out into the street and is struck by a car, killing her. An accident, they say. But there are all kinds of factors that resulted in that tragedy. The design of the street that enabled the car to be driving too fast near a residential district. The design of the car that makes it very lethal and makes it hard to see the child. The lack of nearby parks or playgrounds where the child could play more safely. Any or all of these factors could be changed to ensure that another child is not killed, but too often, it's just called an "accident" and nothing changes. And that's just one case.
The author is a journalist so she writes well, clear, compelling, and well organized. And the book is deeply researched, full of example after example, covering all sectors of American life. It's also pretty short and easy to read.
I strongly recommend it.
June 2, 2022
The author makes many excellent points and makes a very convincing argument that I live in a country that cares a great deal more for profit and being right than for human life. There were a few instances though that I found myself wondering (just a little) about some of her statistics. I suspect the numbers are actually solid, but that may be because I already agreed with what she had to say most of the time. A clever author might be able to refute these arguments in a convincing way particularly where the use of statistics gets a little fuzzy here and there. This book is also quite one-sidedly political which could turn off some of the very readers that most need to be convinced.
March 5, 2023
No Accidents is a compelling and well-written argument against the idea that accidents are random errors that “just happen” and that there is nothing we can do to prevent them. While the book touches on many different kinds of accidents, I found the parts about car accidents and urban design to be the most interesting. Jessie Singer was motivated to write this book after her friend was killed by a car while biking, and the sections on car culture and car design felt the most captivating and carefully crafted. While the whole book is interesting, these were the parts that really jumped off the page and felt real to me.
Car accidents, Singer argues, are not unpredictable errors but are instead the expected result of the design of our roadways. Many urban American streets are designed to look like interstate highways—long, straight roads with no obstacles. Because these roads look like interstates, drivers treat them like interstates, barrelling down them at incredible speeds, indifferent to anyone biking, walking, or just existing in the neighborhood. These stroads (shout out to fellow Strong Towns fanboys) has a very high risk of accidents because drivers fly through neighborhoods like they’re on a highway.
On the other hand, urban streets that look like neighborhood streets (with lots of curves, speed bumps, as well as trees, benches, and other signs of human life) actually reduce accidents because drivers intuitively slow down when driving on them. When the road is curvy and there are lots of obstacles and things happening around the road, drivers can’t just go on auto-pilot; they have to slow down and pay attention.
This really resonated with me because I just moved from the US to Amsterdam. Compared to the US, Amsterdam streets are are narrower, curvier, and full of speed bumps. Traffic lights are timed for bikes and pedestrians, and larger streets always have pedestrian islands so you can cross one lane of traffic at a time, rather than fording 6 lanes of high-speed traffic at the same time and hoping everyone slows down for you. As a pedestrian, Amsterdam is a much more pleasant and safer walking experience. And it all comes down to the way the roads are designed. This isn’t news for anyone interested in urban planning, but for people who haven’t given much thought to the design of their city before, the realisation that these environments were intentionally designed this way—and that we can decide to design them a different way—can be life-changing.
Other interesting stuff I learned from this book:
* The term “Jay-driver” (contra “jaywalker”) used to be a thing. I’m hoping this term makes a comeback someday. We need more derogatory terms for cars and drivers in places they have no business being.
* In 2019, US drivers killed (on average) 21 pedestrians every day. I had no idea this number was so high, and it’s depressing how we accept this as normal. Of course, the pedestrian fatalities were disproportionally Black, Latino, and Indigenous people, who are also more likely to be blamed for simply crossing the street “in the way” of cars. Drivers kill twice as many Black pedestrians as white ones. And, oh yeah, drivers yield the right of way to Black pedestrians significantly less often than their white counterparts. Singer’s discussion of the role of race and racism in how accidents happen is really excellent and is one of the best parts of this book.
* Many speed limits are based on…drivers’ gut feelings of safety. Singer quotes a researcher who asserts that the speed limit for cars is not based on crash test studies or other research but instead on the upper limit of how fast drivers feel it is safe to drive. The speed limit is “the perceived safe speed of a road, not the actual risk of traveling that speed on that road.” (p. 95) This was really mind-blowing to me. I guess I assumed that because the government paints the speed limit on a giant official sign, this number must have been carefully calculated and tested. Apparently not!
The book has more to offer than a discussion of car accidents and urban design—the section on Three Mile Island and nuclear catastrophe is also quite good—but I think the author’s arguments are strongest in these areas.
I’m already an anticapitalist urban planning nerd, so I enjoyed this book because it validated a bunch of my priors and allowed me to back my loathing of cars up with actual data. I’m not sure how a corporate CEO who drives an F-150 in the American suburbs would feel about this book and how convincing it would be to someone who doesn’t already basically support its premise. The metrics and statistics feel somewhat curated and hand-picked to support the author’s argument, rather than the other way around. But it’s nonetheless a compelling argument, especially for those who are already somewhat skeptical of the power of corporations and rich people in our society.
Car accidents, Singer argues, are not unpredictable errors but are instead the expected result of the design of our roadways. Many urban American streets are designed to look like interstate highways—long, straight roads with no obstacles. Because these roads look like interstates, drivers treat them like interstates, barrelling down them at incredible speeds, indifferent to anyone biking, walking, or just existing in the neighborhood. These stroads (shout out to fellow Strong Towns fanboys) has a very high risk of accidents because drivers fly through neighborhoods like they’re on a highway.
On the other hand, urban streets that look like neighborhood streets (with lots of curves, speed bumps, as well as trees, benches, and other signs of human life) actually reduce accidents because drivers intuitively slow down when driving on them. When the road is curvy and there are lots of obstacles and things happening around the road, drivers can’t just go on auto-pilot; they have to slow down and pay attention.
This really resonated with me because I just moved from the US to Amsterdam. Compared to the US, Amsterdam streets are are narrower, curvier, and full of speed bumps. Traffic lights are timed for bikes and pedestrians, and larger streets always have pedestrian islands so you can cross one lane of traffic at a time, rather than fording 6 lanes of high-speed traffic at the same time and hoping everyone slows down for you. As a pedestrian, Amsterdam is a much more pleasant and safer walking experience. And it all comes down to the way the roads are designed. This isn’t news for anyone interested in urban planning, but for people who haven’t given much thought to the design of their city before, the realisation that these environments were intentionally designed this way—and that we can decide to design them a different way—can be life-changing.
Other interesting stuff I learned from this book:
* The term “Jay-driver” (contra “jaywalker”) used to be a thing. I’m hoping this term makes a comeback someday. We need more derogatory terms for cars and drivers in places they have no business being.
* In 2019, US drivers killed (on average) 21 pedestrians every day. I had no idea this number was so high, and it’s depressing how we accept this as normal. Of course, the pedestrian fatalities were disproportionally Black, Latino, and Indigenous people, who are also more likely to be blamed for simply crossing the street “in the way” of cars. Drivers kill twice as many Black pedestrians as white ones. And, oh yeah, drivers yield the right of way to Black pedestrians significantly less often than their white counterparts. Singer’s discussion of the role of race and racism in how accidents happen is really excellent and is one of the best parts of this book.
* Many speed limits are based on…drivers’ gut feelings of safety. Singer quotes a researcher who asserts that the speed limit for cars is not based on crash test studies or other research but instead on the upper limit of how fast drivers feel it is safe to drive. The speed limit is “the perceived safe speed of a road, not the actual risk of traveling that speed on that road.” (p. 95) This was really mind-blowing to me. I guess I assumed that because the government paints the speed limit on a giant official sign, this number must have been carefully calculated and tested. Apparently not!
The book has more to offer than a discussion of car accidents and urban design—the section on Three Mile Island and nuclear catastrophe is also quite good—but I think the author’s arguments are strongest in these areas.
I’m already an anticapitalist urban planning nerd, so I enjoyed this book because it validated a bunch of my priors and allowed me to back my loathing of cars up with actual data. I’m not sure how a corporate CEO who drives an F-150 in the American suburbs would feel about this book and how convincing it would be to someone who doesn’t already basically support its premise. The metrics and statistics feel somewhat curated and hand-picked to support the author’s argument, rather than the other way around. But it’s nonetheless a compelling argument, especially for those who are already somewhat skeptical of the power of corporations and rich people in our society.
January 14, 2023
Very disappointing. I 100% agree with the title. Knowing from personal experience that workplace deaths in the U.S. are down two-thirds in the past 50 years, I was expecting a data driven analysis of where the issues are and the approaches that have had success for all “accidental” deaths. That is not what this book is. There is not a single chart or graph on “accident” trends or anything else. Some statistics are quoted, but usually out of context.
Instead, this book is driven by a political agenda and ignores all data to the contrary (and there is a lot of such data). I learned that bike helmets are bad for safety, “the rich are not good” (p. 171), drunk drivers speeding at 100 mph are not to blame for killing people (car companies and cities are to blame), white people are rarely the victim of accidents (even though their opioid deaths in the past 20 years are the main reason unintentional deaths in the U.S. have been increasing). There are at least 100 more examples of such nonsense in this book and very little about how we can reduce deaths.
Occasionally, the politics are forgotten and there is some useful discussion, which is why I did not give this book only 1 star.
Instead, this book is driven by a political agenda and ignores all data to the contrary (and there is a lot of such data). I learned that bike helmets are bad for safety, “the rich are not good” (p. 171), drunk drivers speeding at 100 mph are not to blame for killing people (car companies and cities are to blame), white people are rarely the victim of accidents (even though their opioid deaths in the past 20 years are the main reason unintentional deaths in the U.S. have been increasing). There are at least 100 more examples of such nonsense in this book and very little about how we can reduce deaths.
Occasionally, the politics are forgotten and there is some useful discussion, which is why I did not give this book only 1 star.
December 31, 2022
4.5 stars, rounded up
Stunning - one of those rare books that changes the way I look at the world.
I have so much to say about it I did a full standalone review on Booktube - check it out!
Stunning - one of those rare books that changes the way I look at the world.
I have so much to say about it I did a full standalone review on Booktube - check it out!
May 15, 2022
3.25 or 3.5 stars really — I have been talking about this book a lot and will continue to think about the patterns and examples brought up in it for a good long while. The ‘Swiss cheese’ metaphor used throughout the book to explain the layers of protection in place to avoid disaster and how they might fall through was really effective to me. Singer argues that we need to learn from patterns of death and injury and advocate for safer systems rather than focusing on casting blame and punishment on individuals who end up causing harm (or even sometimes on those who are harmed themselves!) within the context of these risky systems. The argument is set up very well… and then the book just keeps going on and on with the same stuff.
I would highly recommend reading the first five chapters/120 pages of the book, but there aren’t many new takeaways to glean from the case studies in the remaining chapters. I will also admit that something didn’t sit right with me in the intro and I thought I might put the book down just as soon as I’d started it, but Chapters 1-5 are really persuasive and well researched and provide a powerful framework through which to consider who we allow to get hurt and who gets to make those decisions in our capitalist country
I would highly recommend reading the first five chapters/120 pages of the book, but there aren’t many new takeaways to glean from the case studies in the remaining chapters. I will also admit that something didn’t sit right with me in the intro and I thought I might put the book down just as soon as I’d started it, but Chapters 1-5 are really persuasive and well researched and provide a powerful framework through which to consider who we allow to get hurt and who gets to make those decisions in our capitalist country
April 9, 2022
Really, really great. Outlines how greed and profit and capitalism and government corruption allow for the "accidental" deaths and injuries of thousands upon thousands of people every year. Much of the book is about cars and safe streets, but it also features research on airplanes, drugs, and guns, among other things. People killed in "accidents" (Singer calls these "scare quotes") are disproportionately low-income people and people of color - lives seen as disposable by giant corporations, lobbyists, and corrupt politicians.
The study by Heidelberg University that Singer mentioned on p. 187 was great - as it hammered home how cyclists are prematurely blamed for their deaths:
"The bicycle helmet is such a predominant manifestation of blame in cycling accidents in the United States that a researcher at Heidelberg University in Germany was inspired to track it. He analyzed the bicycle safety advice of twenty-five U.S. cities; the overhyping of helmets was so common that he declared it a 'a fixation.' Blame was central to the fixation, with helmet-oriented safety advice more likely to be both moralizing and given special attention-exclamations, italics, graphic depictions-where other safety advice was stated plainly. The helmet, he concluded, is a way to see the death of a cyclist as an accident, to lay blame as a handy distraction from the central and systemic dangerous condition: cars can kill people."
The study by Heidelberg University that Singer mentioned on p. 187 was great - as it hammered home how cyclists are prematurely blamed for their deaths:
"The bicycle helmet is such a predominant manifestation of blame in cycling accidents in the United States that a researcher at Heidelberg University in Germany was inspired to track it. He analyzed the bicycle safety advice of twenty-five U.S. cities; the overhyping of helmets was so common that he declared it a 'a fixation.' Blame was central to the fixation, with helmet-oriented safety advice more likely to be both moralizing and given special attention-exclamations, italics, graphic depictions-where other safety advice was stated plainly. The helmet, he concluded, is a way to see the death of a cyclist as an accident, to lay blame as a handy distraction from the central and systemic dangerous condition: cars can kill people."
December 15, 2022
While the main theme is well presented and perfectly valid, there are some missteps along the way. The recurring theme about racism being at the root of not fixing some problems is overwrought. Also I caught a couple of instances of lying with statistics (valid changes in percentages, for example, that were probably caused by a lowered denominator instead of an increase in the numerator as the author implied). Tsk.
June 21, 2022
I lowered my review to 1 star as the author posts sexist content online. Not worth your time to listen to someone so fragile.
May 28, 2022
Arrgh! The author makes an eloquent plea to stop calling things "accidents" when they are entirely predictable and preventable. Hooray! But then she spends the whole book using the word "accident" to refer to these events that she's telling us not to call "accidents." I found this extremely irritating.
Beyond that, there was too much of anecdotes, social theory and psychology studies for my tastes. This is all a shame because the underlying point is incredibly important: we could prevent many thousands of "accidental" deaths every year just by reframing them as inevitable consequences of unnecessarily dangerous human-made conditions.
Other books to consider:
Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies
Prescription for a Healthy Nation: A New Approach to Improving Our Lives by Fixing Our Everyday World
Lethal But Legal: Corporations, Consumption, and Protecting Public Health
Beyond that, there was too much of anecdotes, social theory and psychology studies for my tastes. This is all a shame because the underlying point is incredibly important: we could prevent many thousands of "accidental" deaths every year just by reframing them as inevitable consequences of unnecessarily dangerous human-made conditions.
Other books to consider:
Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies
Prescription for a Healthy Nation: A New Approach to Improving Our Lives by Fixing Our Everyday World
Lethal But Legal: Corporations, Consumption, and Protecting Public Health
November 19, 2023
I’m pretty conflicted about this one. There is so much information in here that is urgent and vital. Unfortunately it suffers a bit from being all facts, no panache. This book was even more “F**k the Corporations” than I’d expected. Which is fair, I guess, but those types of books usually just leave me feeling powerless and despondent, and this one was no exception. I’m already pretty familiar with the deregulation that’s been rampant since the 70s gave us agencies like the EPA, but I think this quote sums up the soul-sucking beginning of the end:
“In 1980, Americans elected Ronald Reagan on a platform of defanging those very agencies. He would issue an executive order requiring that every regulation be subject to a cost-benefit analysis, truly saying the quiet part out loud: It is not worth saving lives if it costs money.”
Author Jessie Singer did tell some really interesting anecdotes to underscore her points. The sections about traffic engineering were fascinating: how land planners design roads, how speed limits get set, how car-makers invented the concept of jaywalking so they could criminalize it, etc. This quote encapsulates the book’s thesis quite well:
“The ‘distracted pedestrian’ is a new version of an old trick: redirecting focus from a dangerous condition to an individual mistake.”
But Singer’s picking and choosing of facts and figures was distracting to me even though I agree with her assessments on the whole. Her critical, accusatory tone that had me up in arms a bit. Still, I suppose I shouldn’t shoot the messenger here. The repetition is, in the end, what had me banging my head against the wall.
If you don’t know much about deregulation, the opioid crisis, mass incarceration, or the history of workman's comp, this book could be a real game-changer for you. Singer does synthesize a lot of problematic elements of American culture, showing how so many systemic issues essentially boil down to blaming the victim — and that is a very worthwhile point to make. It’s just that I’ve already read so much about these topics already that I found about half the book a struggle to get through. I’m rounding up to a 3 rating simply for this book’s importance.
“In 1980, Americans elected Ronald Reagan on a platform of defanging those very agencies. He would issue an executive order requiring that every regulation be subject to a cost-benefit analysis, truly saying the quiet part out loud: It is not worth saving lives if it costs money.”
Author Jessie Singer did tell some really interesting anecdotes to underscore her points. The sections about traffic engineering were fascinating: how land planners design roads, how speed limits get set, how car-makers invented the concept of jaywalking so they could criminalize it, etc. This quote encapsulates the book’s thesis quite well:
“The ‘distracted pedestrian’ is a new version of an old trick: redirecting focus from a dangerous condition to an individual mistake.”
But Singer’s picking and choosing of facts and figures was distracting to me even though I agree with her assessments on the whole. Her critical, accusatory tone that had me up in arms a bit. Still, I suppose I shouldn’t shoot the messenger here. The repetition is, in the end, what had me banging my head against the wall.
If you don’t know much about deregulation, the opioid crisis, mass incarceration, or the history of workman's comp, this book could be a real game-changer for you. Singer does synthesize a lot of problematic elements of American culture, showing how so many systemic issues essentially boil down to blaming the victim — and that is a very worthwhile point to make. It’s just that I’ve already read so much about these topics already that I found about half the book a struggle to get through. I’m rounding up to a 3 rating simply for this book’s importance.
August 20, 2022
In a sociology class I once took, I learned one fact that has sat with me for the years since.
We were asked to consider what was the single largest factor in increasing life expectancy in the United States. This was posed as a multiple choice poll on the very first day. I thought the answer was something along the lines of advances in medicine, or maybe vaccines.
But that's not it at all. It was regulations.
In There Are No Accidents we look at what happens to humans in our built environment. Humans are inherently fragile and flawed people. We make mistakes and when mistakes are made, we can be injured. It's easy to want to think when these mistakes happened the problem is that we are trying to perfect an imperfect creature. Or perhaps that we can find some sort of fault in a party involved, a fault that makes that person deeply unsympathetic. And we can blame that person for making such an obvious and careless mistake.
This book encourages us to avoid making that mistake.
We are flawed, yes, however our failings are predictable. We know what situations test our patience, we know what kind of scenarios can hurt us. Assigning blame, punishing, and moving on will never dig us out of the mess we are in, and it won't reduce the number of accidental deaths that are going to occur this year (likely in the ballpark of 170,000, the same as the year before, and the one before that).
We don't have to settle for this. Every death that is ruled as an accident is one that someone doesn't want to think about. Often by someone who is trying to make or save a buck.
Singer highlights several cases that show how the regulatory system of the United States has either given up or been entirely gutted by the corporations that have decided that a slight increase in the chance that you die is worth a couple more dollars for their shareholders.
It's important to remember that every safety regulation was written in blood, and every day we neglect to enforce these rules or develop new rules in the aftermath of an "accident", is another death guaranteed in the future.
We were asked to consider what was the single largest factor in increasing life expectancy in the United States. This was posed as a multiple choice poll on the very first day. I thought the answer was something along the lines of advances in medicine, or maybe vaccines.
But that's not it at all. It was regulations.
In There Are No Accidents we look at what happens to humans in our built environment. Humans are inherently fragile and flawed people. We make mistakes and when mistakes are made, we can be injured. It's easy to want to think when these mistakes happened the problem is that we are trying to perfect an imperfect creature. Or perhaps that we can find some sort of fault in a party involved, a fault that makes that person deeply unsympathetic. And we can blame that person for making such an obvious and careless mistake.
This book encourages us to avoid making that mistake.
We are flawed, yes, however our failings are predictable. We know what situations test our patience, we know what kind of scenarios can hurt us. Assigning blame, punishing, and moving on will never dig us out of the mess we are in, and it won't reduce the number of accidental deaths that are going to occur this year (likely in the ballpark of 170,000, the same as the year before, and the one before that).
We don't have to settle for this. Every death that is ruled as an accident is one that someone doesn't want to think about. Often by someone who is trying to make or save a buck.
Singer highlights several cases that show how the regulatory system of the United States has either given up or been entirely gutted by the corporations that have decided that a slight increase in the chance that you die is worth a couple more dollars for their shareholders.
It's important to remember that every safety regulation was written in blood, and every day we neglect to enforce these rules or develop new rules in the aftermath of an "accident", is another death guaranteed in the future.
February 5, 2025
A convincing synthesis of the economic, social, and environmental conditions that contribute to fatalities. Books like this, and the studies referenced within, serve as prime examples of what should be considered when evaluating and implementing more ethical public policy. Overall, the content of this book did not surprise me—many of these issues are inherent to our current economic and political system—yet I still highly recommend it. The conclusion was succinctly powerful.
September 22, 2024
…but stay safe is not an instruction, rather it is hopeful prayer. In long form it looks like this: May you stay safe. May the forces that control who lives and dies in America act towards your protection. May you stay safe and should you not, may you get a better story than ‘it was an accident’.
January 5, 2023
Are accidental deaths simply about an unlucky person who made a mistake, or who was in the wrong place at the wrong time? Jesse Singer contends there is far more to the story. Real responsibility for such deaths lies with those who can, and fail to, prevent them. Singer makes a strong case for fixing the built environment that is so conducive to fatal mistakes, as opposed to trying to fix individuals who make them.
There are 173,000 accidental deaths a year in the USA. They are mainly ignored -- even though
57 times more Americans die in accidents than died on 9/11. The accidental death rate declined after WWII until 1992. Since then, that rate has risen by 50 percent, even as the overall death rate declined, prior to the pandemic.
The US is an outlier in accidental deaths. Americans are significantly more likely to suffer accidental deaths than Europeans, Japanese, Canadians or Aussies. Norway was second highest in accidental death rate in 2008, yet Americans were 40 percent more likely to die from accidents than Norweigans. And more than three times more likely to die in a traffic accident here than in Japan.
The word "accident" carries unfortunate connotations, according to the author of There Are No Accidents. The word “accident” erroneously implies that injuries occur by chance and cannot be foreseen or prevented. In addition, calling a tragedy an accident tends to absolve
powerful people who are responsible for dangerous conditions, and who allow accidents to happen again and again.
We human beings are eager to cast blame, but reluctant to accept it. When something bad happens, we look for a scapegoat. When we blame victims for their accidents, we are distracted from seeking ways to prevent future accidents. Punishing the distracted driver does not make a dangerous intersection safer. Blaming is also a reason we don't spend more to prevent accidents. After all, if accidents are the fault of careless, reckless or drunk individuals, they deserve what they get.
Powerful people responsible for dangerous conditions would rather find a low-level scapegoat to blame than to admit their own
nonfeasance. Blaming a negligent driver protects those who could have, but did not, remove risky conditions.
Singer sums up his point: "The chief consequence of blame is the prevention of prevention. In finding fault with a person, the case of any given accident appears closed. Putting aside blame is the first step to changing the environments that put us at risk."
Our behavior is influenced by our environment. When the environment contains hazardous conditions, then human error leads to bad outcomes. Error is involved in almost all fatal accidents; so are dangerous conditions.
Should we fix people who make mistakes, or should we fix the environment conducive to deadly mistakes? Consider a case study.
Aspirin poisoning of children was once a common occurence. One reaction was to blame careless parents for leaving aspirin bottles where toddlers could get them. A related approach was to run educational campaigns reminding parents to be more careful. A third aproach proved the most effective: The Poison Prevention Packaging Act enacted in 1970 regulates pill containers, requiring them to be childproof. The number of children accidentally killed subsequently declined by 75 percent. In other words, the environment was made safer, and child safety didn't depend upon parents always remembering to hide the aspirin.
Singer's thesis is this: "Mistakes are inevitable, people are not perfectible, and the only answer to the accident problem starts with setting aside blame for human error. Accidents happen when errors occur under dangerous conditions, but you can create conditions that anticipate errors and make those mistakes less of a life-or-death equation. Or you can focus all your energy on errors, and let the same accidents happen again and again."
In short, fix people or fix the built
environment (dangerous
conditions). Since people aren't perfectible, design workplaces to anticipate mistakes, reduce them, and make them less harmful.
Whether we choose blame or redesign determines whether the same accidents happen again.
Singer takes an instructive look at two previous periods of significant increases in fatal accidents: early in the Industrial Revolution and in the first half century after the invention of the automobile. "From the Industrial Revolution onward, powerful corporate interests insisted that fallible people were the souce of all accidents."
The railroad industry is a case in point. There were 11,000 workers killed in coupling accidents in 1892 alone. The industry blamed the victims for being careless or drunk. In 1893, Congress passed a law requiring air brakes on all trains and the use of automatic couplers, so workers could connect or disconnect two railcars without standing between them. The number of coupling deaths soon deaths plummeted.
In 1908, traffic accidents killed 751 Americans. By 1935, traffic fatalities had grown more than 50 times —37,000 Americans dead and 105,000 permanently disabled.
Both the industrialists and auto executives embraced the bad apple explanation: it was careless workers and reckless drivers who were to blame. It was individual mistakes, not dangerous conditions, that caused soaring deaths and injuries.
The auto industry blamed speeders and "jaywalkers," a term that the industry converted for its purposes. In 1927, Walter Chrysler wrote that the only solution to pedestrian deaths was to educate children.
While blaming the jaywalkers for getting killed, the auto industry opposed speed governors on vehicles in urban areas, even though the likelihood of death after being struck by a vehicle rises geometrically with speed. They refused to admit the inherent danger of vehicles capable of high speeds on urban streets.
Blaming the victim was the same response that industrialists had to increasing deaths and injuries on the job. Injured workers werw supposedly accident-prone, careless, or drunk. Employers much preferred to focus on the role of worker errors in accidents rather than on unsafe working conditions. It's not the speed of the assembly line that is to blame -- it's always wayward workers.
The problem is that maximizing profits is a higher priority than reducing injuries. It wasn't until states adopted worker comp laws that the number of serious industrial accidents plummeted. That's because accidents then affected the bottom line.
As early as 1953, research demonstrated that drivers were injured or killed by pointed knobs, dashboards without padding, steering columns that could not collapse on impact, and no safety belts. Though the auto industry knew that safety belts, airbags, and padded interiors save lives, executives did not voluntarily put them in vehicles, and they resisted and delayed federal regs to do so.
Every industry has the same playbook. For many years, Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, blamed overdose deaths on the victims -- not on the addictive opiod Purdue was selling as nonaddictive. Abusers are "reckless criminals," wrote Richard Sackler in 2001.
Power is a key factor in accidents. Some people have the power to mitigate risky conditions, but refuse to do it. Americans who are poor and black or brown are much more likely to die in accidents. "Wealth is a risk insulator and poverty is a risk amplifier."
Another example of blaming victims instead of unsafe conditions involves the 50 percent jump in pedestrian deaths since 2009. It's not that pedestrians are 50 percent more careless, it's that vehicles are bigger and faster. Yet Federal safety agencies focus on educating pedestrians, not on testing and rating vehicles for harm to pedestrians, the way Japan and Europe do.
In rejecting blame, Singer is also critical of stricter law enforcement as a way to reduce accidents. While enforcement has limitations and abuses, Singer goes too far in eschewing it. The dramatic increase in safety-belt use in the 1980s and 90s is evidence that high-profile enforcement, combined with education, can change behavior and prevent injuries and deaths. Similar results occurred with DUI and the use of child safety seats.
More police patrols, however, are neither a panacea nor a substitute for fixing risky conditions conducive to fatal mishaps.
Most nonfiction that people read basically reinforces their current beliefs. Once in a while, however, a book elicits a sharp shift in how the reader sees reality. There Are No Accidents is a prime example. Most readers will agree that "mistakes are inevitable, but premature death is not."
Readers will likely support redesigning conditions to allow less harm when inevitable mistakes are made, as well as to resist the kneejerk urge to blame accidents on some careless victim.
Given that Americans are far more likely to die from accidents than our counterparts in other affluent nations, we should change our approach and "prevent the preventable." Design systems to minimize the harm from inevitable mistakes. When tragedy is predictable, we should seek to avoid it. -30-
There are 173,000 accidental deaths a year in the USA. They are mainly ignored -- even though
57 times more Americans die in accidents than died on 9/11. The accidental death rate declined after WWII until 1992. Since then, that rate has risen by 50 percent, even as the overall death rate declined, prior to the pandemic.
The US is an outlier in accidental deaths. Americans are significantly more likely to suffer accidental deaths than Europeans, Japanese, Canadians or Aussies. Norway was second highest in accidental death rate in 2008, yet Americans were 40 percent more likely to die from accidents than Norweigans. And more than three times more likely to die in a traffic accident here than in Japan.
The word "accident" carries unfortunate connotations, according to the author of There Are No Accidents. The word “accident” erroneously implies that injuries occur by chance and cannot be foreseen or prevented. In addition, calling a tragedy an accident tends to absolve
powerful people who are responsible for dangerous conditions, and who allow accidents to happen again and again.
We human beings are eager to cast blame, but reluctant to accept it. When something bad happens, we look for a scapegoat. When we blame victims for their accidents, we are distracted from seeking ways to prevent future accidents. Punishing the distracted driver does not make a dangerous intersection safer. Blaming is also a reason we don't spend more to prevent accidents. After all, if accidents are the fault of careless, reckless or drunk individuals, they deserve what they get.
Powerful people responsible for dangerous conditions would rather find a low-level scapegoat to blame than to admit their own
nonfeasance. Blaming a negligent driver protects those who could have, but did not, remove risky conditions.
Singer sums up his point: "The chief consequence of blame is the prevention of prevention. In finding fault with a person, the case of any given accident appears closed. Putting aside blame is the first step to changing the environments that put us at risk."
Our behavior is influenced by our environment. When the environment contains hazardous conditions, then human error leads to bad outcomes. Error is involved in almost all fatal accidents; so are dangerous conditions.
Should we fix people who make mistakes, or should we fix the environment conducive to deadly mistakes? Consider a case study.
Aspirin poisoning of children was once a common occurence. One reaction was to blame careless parents for leaving aspirin bottles where toddlers could get them. A related approach was to run educational campaigns reminding parents to be more careful. A third aproach proved the most effective: The Poison Prevention Packaging Act enacted in 1970 regulates pill containers, requiring them to be childproof. The number of children accidentally killed subsequently declined by 75 percent. In other words, the environment was made safer, and child safety didn't depend upon parents always remembering to hide the aspirin.
Singer's thesis is this: "Mistakes are inevitable, people are not perfectible, and the only answer to the accident problem starts with setting aside blame for human error. Accidents happen when errors occur under dangerous conditions, but you can create conditions that anticipate errors and make those mistakes less of a life-or-death equation. Or you can focus all your energy on errors, and let the same accidents happen again and again."
In short, fix people or fix the built
environment (dangerous
conditions). Since people aren't perfectible, design workplaces to anticipate mistakes, reduce them, and make them less harmful.
Whether we choose blame or redesign determines whether the same accidents happen again.
Singer takes an instructive look at two previous periods of significant increases in fatal accidents: early in the Industrial Revolution and in the first half century after the invention of the automobile. "From the Industrial Revolution onward, powerful corporate interests insisted that fallible people were the souce of all accidents."
The railroad industry is a case in point. There were 11,000 workers killed in coupling accidents in 1892 alone. The industry blamed the victims for being careless or drunk. In 1893, Congress passed a law requiring air brakes on all trains and the use of automatic couplers, so workers could connect or disconnect two railcars without standing between them. The number of coupling deaths soon deaths plummeted.
In 1908, traffic accidents killed 751 Americans. By 1935, traffic fatalities had grown more than 50 times —37,000 Americans dead and 105,000 permanently disabled.
Both the industrialists and auto executives embraced the bad apple explanation: it was careless workers and reckless drivers who were to blame. It was individual mistakes, not dangerous conditions, that caused soaring deaths and injuries.
The auto industry blamed speeders and "jaywalkers," a term that the industry converted for its purposes. In 1927, Walter Chrysler wrote that the only solution to pedestrian deaths was to educate children.
While blaming the jaywalkers for getting killed, the auto industry opposed speed governors on vehicles in urban areas, even though the likelihood of death after being struck by a vehicle rises geometrically with speed. They refused to admit the inherent danger of vehicles capable of high speeds on urban streets.
Blaming the victim was the same response that industrialists had to increasing deaths and injuries on the job. Injured workers werw supposedly accident-prone, careless, or drunk. Employers much preferred to focus on the role of worker errors in accidents rather than on unsafe working conditions. It's not the speed of the assembly line that is to blame -- it's always wayward workers.
The problem is that maximizing profits is a higher priority than reducing injuries. It wasn't until states adopted worker comp laws that the number of serious industrial accidents plummeted. That's because accidents then affected the bottom line.
As early as 1953, research demonstrated that drivers were injured or killed by pointed knobs, dashboards without padding, steering columns that could not collapse on impact, and no safety belts. Though the auto industry knew that safety belts, airbags, and padded interiors save lives, executives did not voluntarily put them in vehicles, and they resisted and delayed federal regs to do so.
Every industry has the same playbook. For many years, Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, blamed overdose deaths on the victims -- not on the addictive opiod Purdue was selling as nonaddictive. Abusers are "reckless criminals," wrote Richard Sackler in 2001.
Power is a key factor in accidents. Some people have the power to mitigate risky conditions, but refuse to do it. Americans who are poor and black or brown are much more likely to die in accidents. "Wealth is a risk insulator and poverty is a risk amplifier."
Another example of blaming victims instead of unsafe conditions involves the 50 percent jump in pedestrian deaths since 2009. It's not that pedestrians are 50 percent more careless, it's that vehicles are bigger and faster. Yet Federal safety agencies focus on educating pedestrians, not on testing and rating vehicles for harm to pedestrians, the way Japan and Europe do.
In rejecting blame, Singer is also critical of stricter law enforcement as a way to reduce accidents. While enforcement has limitations and abuses, Singer goes too far in eschewing it. The dramatic increase in safety-belt use in the 1980s and 90s is evidence that high-profile enforcement, combined with education, can change behavior and prevent injuries and deaths. Similar results occurred with DUI and the use of child safety seats.
More police patrols, however, are neither a panacea nor a substitute for fixing risky conditions conducive to fatal mishaps.
Most nonfiction that people read basically reinforces their current beliefs. Once in a while, however, a book elicits a sharp shift in how the reader sees reality. There Are No Accidents is a prime example. Most readers will agree that "mistakes are inevitable, but premature death is not."
Readers will likely support redesigning conditions to allow less harm when inevitable mistakes are made, as well as to resist the kneejerk urge to blame accidents on some careless victim.
Given that Americans are far more likely to die from accidents than our counterparts in other affluent nations, we should change our approach and "prevent the preventable." Design systems to minimize the harm from inevitable mistakes. When tragedy is predictable, we should seek to avoid it. -30-
February 28, 2022
I learned so much while reading this book. While ambitiously tackling large, abstract topics, Singer's writing is admirably incisive and persuasive. She builds her case with facts and makes you care with empathy. Singer is both poignant and pithy, and this versatility made for a compelling page turner. The frameworks that Singer uses to build her argument are clearly explained and insightfully applied. I found myself energized with love and rage during and after reading. Such a useful and inspiring book!
March 12, 2022
Motivated by the death of her friend who was struck by a car while on a bike path in NYC, the author examines how what we call "accidents" are often cases of poor engineering. With our built environment privileging cars, we tend to accept deaths of pedestrians and bicyclists instead of engineering our streets to protect them. I found the book thought-provoking.
December 23, 2022
Can't stop thinking or talking about this book! Its overall premise is very simple: there are no accidents; virtually everything that we place into that 'accident' bucket of human error is very predictable and is a direct consequence of the environment that allows it to take place. For example, a pedestrian being killed by a car swerving off the road could be called an 'accident' or you can look at the environment: our streets were built for speed, not safety, there weren't any trees or barriers lining the street to protect pedestrians, cars are so big that people are killed when hit by them even at slow speeds, and there is economic inequality that means many of those walking are poorer and therefore have less power to change this unsafe environment. Calling tragedies like these accidents also means that we don't do anything to change them, but pointing to their true causes allows us to do something about them and save a whole lot of lives! The book shows how this applies to every aspect of life: car crashes, workplace injuries, nuclear meltdowns, plane crashes, etc., and how larger political dynamics and corporate influence have changed public perception and the ability to change circumstances.
The author also has a personal connection to the issue, as her boyfriend was killed while biking in New York when he was 23. The way she talks about him was incredibly moving and puts a face to the tragedy of 'accidental' death that we accept as a fact of life.
The author also has a personal connection to the issue, as her boyfriend was killed while biking in New York when he was 23. The way she talks about him was incredibly moving and puts a face to the tragedy of 'accidental' death that we accept as a fact of life.
February 26, 2023
This was a scary book to read at my water plant. That serves 400,000 people. With our rail cars of gaseous chlorine.
Basically, almost all accidents are products of the built environment. Accidents can be blamed on individuals, but correcting the built environment to prevent accidents is always easier and cheaper and less deadly than leaving things as they are and blaming the individuals who stumble into the traps the badly-planned environment has set for them. Of course, in America everything is all about the individual and re-engineering to prevent tragedies can even be seen as a sign of weakness.
One of the Economist books of the year that my library had on audio. Highly recommend, especially for those who are in a position to fix things or pressure their elected officials to fix things: so, all of us.
Basically, almost all accidents are products of the built environment. Accidents can be blamed on individuals, but correcting the built environment to prevent accidents is always easier and cheaper and less deadly than leaving things as they are and blaming the individuals who stumble into the traps the badly-planned environment has set for them. Of course, in America everything is all about the individual and re-engineering to prevent tragedies can even be seen as a sign of weakness.
One of the Economist books of the year that my library had on audio. Highly recommend, especially for those who are in a position to fix things or pressure their elected officials to fix things: so, all of us.
July 20, 2025
“These are not accidents, but the inevitable outcomes of a society built on inequality, where the powerful are allowed to profit alongside pain and suffering.”
Perhaps a bit redundant in moments, but ultimately an incredibly depressing, rage-inducing, five star book. Such an important read. Frankly at this point idk how any of us are still alive. Really hope I see this book get more attention soon.
UPDATE: more than two years later I still think about this book all the time which means it deserves a spot on my Favorites Shelf
Perhaps a bit redundant in moments, but ultimately an incredibly depressing, rage-inducing, five star book. Such an important read. Frankly at this point idk how any of us are still alive. Really hope I see this book get more attention soon.
UPDATE: more than two years later I still think about this book all the time which means it deserves a spot on my Favorites Shelf
February 8, 2023
This is one of the best books I've ever read and will absolutely be one of my top (if not the top) read of the year for me. And I had no clue when I got it from the library. I honestly thought I'd probably have it for a week and then forget I checked it out and end up returning it without reading. Gotta love these sneaky surprises
May 9, 2022
Interesting read. Definitely makes you think about how accidents are viewed and who takes the blame or gets blamed. Also gives a perspective on how government and money controls what actual safety measures are put into place.
March 13, 2023
A succinct summary of how "accidents" are often caused (fully or partially) by systems that are known to be unsafe -- poorly designed roads and the vehicles that drive on them, dangerous machinery operated by undertrained workers, business operations where productivity trumps the inevitability of worker injury, lack of government regulations to mandate that roads, manufacturers, and industries operate in safer ways. My main issue with this book, though, is that I don't accept the blanket premise that accidents don't exist -- I think they still do and they are almost all multifactorial (or following the Swiss cheese model, as the author puts it).
Singer says that 1 in 24 people will be killed in an accident (a catchall category including but not limited to: motor vehicle collision, airplane crash, non-intentional drug overdose, terrorist attack, lawnmower injury, falling down the stairs), and that people killed in accidents are over-proportionally Black and Brown. I don't argue this point, but if you look at mortality statistics, the other 23/24 will die of predominantly cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, and/or cancer (play around with https://flowingdata.com/2016/01/19/ho...), which is likely why billions of dollars are spent annually on healthcare costs, drug research, and basic science/translational research looking at improving the standard treatments for those issues. In an ideal world, we'd make roads and the cars driving them safer, add even more regulation to the airline and healthcare/pharma industries, and make a class on safe falling free and mandatory to everyone over 65, but realistically, these interventions are largely unfeasible. Here's to trying, though.
Further reading:
When We Do Harm: A Doctor Confronts Medical Error by Danielle Ofri, MD -- medical error
Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez -- how much of the world isn't designed for women (discussed briefly in this book, with the female crash dummy example)
Ghost Road: Beyond the Driverless Car by Anthony Townsend -- a fascinating speculative look at the transit of the future, and its inherent dangers (discussed briefly in this book, with the driverless car fatality discussed)
The Great Air Race: Glory, Tragedy, and the Dawn of American Aviation by John Lancaster - some interesting historical perspective on how far the aviation industry has come from its early days
Singer says that 1 in 24 people will be killed in an accident (a catchall category including but not limited to: motor vehicle collision, airplane crash, non-intentional drug overdose, terrorist attack, lawnmower injury, falling down the stairs), and that people killed in accidents are over-proportionally Black and Brown. I don't argue this point, but if you look at mortality statistics, the other 23/24 will die of predominantly cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, and/or cancer (play around with https://flowingdata.com/2016/01/19/ho...), which is likely why billions of dollars are spent annually on healthcare costs, drug research, and basic science/translational research looking at improving the standard treatments for those issues. In an ideal world, we'd make roads and the cars driving them safer, add even more regulation to the airline and healthcare/pharma industries, and make a class on safe falling free and mandatory to everyone over 65, but realistically, these interventions are largely unfeasible. Here's to trying, though.
Further reading:
When We Do Harm: A Doctor Confronts Medical Error by Danielle Ofri, MD -- medical error
Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez -- how much of the world isn't designed for women (discussed briefly in this book, with the female crash dummy example)
Ghost Road: Beyond the Driverless Car by Anthony Townsend -- a fascinating speculative look at the transit of the future, and its inherent dangers (discussed briefly in this book, with the driverless car fatality discussed)
The Great Air Race: Glory, Tragedy, and the Dawn of American Aviation by John Lancaster - some interesting historical perspective on how far the aviation industry has come from its early days
June 29, 2024
"There Are No Accidents" is a book I heard of through a coworker, and which first worried me by its title: it could have taken a position based on blame and how finding guilty parties for everything. It actually does the opposite, and borrows from concepts known to safety and resilience engineering—most heavily citing Sidney Dekker, an eminently quotable professional within these spaces.
As such, the perspective for the book is centred on systemic approaches that line up better with modern safety science and eschews older style views (more firmly causal and local) that tend to show their limits in large complex systems. These gets tied with cross-disciplinary analysis of factors related to social classes, race, and their legacy in the American society when framing "accidents" on a socioeconomic level.
I'm giving it 4 stars because it's a really good high-level introduction for people unfamiliar with safety literature, and trying to apply it to broad social issues.
I'm withholding the fifth star because I think the author gets to use a bunch of safety lenses, and mixes them up in some subtly risky ways: the energy and barrier perspective gets mixed with Reason's Swiss Cheese model (both its "Latent Failure" form and also its more commonly known oversimplified form that goes back to Heinrich's domino model); more systemic and less linear views keep being seen as "another hole in the cheese" in a more direct causal framing. Other views, like the Drift Model, Safety-I/Safety-II, or Leveson's System-Theoretic models are not mentioned, despite being "newer" and having useful perspectives to the author.
Another example here is how the author ties historic improvements of anesthesiology's safety to tort law (pre-reform) prompting changes, whereas other more specialized sources (say, Still Not Safe: Patient Safety and the Middle-Managing of American Medicine by Wears and Sutcliffe) show that many of the improvement came from shifts in how incidents were handled—away from heavy statistical approaches and leaning more on deep qualitative investigations.
These small stretches jumping between theories or frameworks are a bit clumsy to someone more familiar with each of them individually, and tends to paper over some of the rich local mess of these views to tie them to a broader (and blunter) sociopolitical American perspective.
This is still relevant, don't get me wrong, but I think they're a trade-off between academic accuracy and popularization of its concepts. This is not, after all, another safety-specific publication, but a journalistic type of essay, which does a lot better than I had initially expected.
As such, the perspective for the book is centred on systemic approaches that line up better with modern safety science and eschews older style views (more firmly causal and local) that tend to show their limits in large complex systems. These gets tied with cross-disciplinary analysis of factors related to social classes, race, and their legacy in the American society when framing "accidents" on a socioeconomic level.
I'm giving it 4 stars because it's a really good high-level introduction for people unfamiliar with safety literature, and trying to apply it to broad social issues.
I'm withholding the fifth star because I think the author gets to use a bunch of safety lenses, and mixes them up in some subtly risky ways: the energy and barrier perspective gets mixed with Reason's Swiss Cheese model (both its "Latent Failure" form and also its more commonly known oversimplified form that goes back to Heinrich's domino model); more systemic and less linear views keep being seen as "another hole in the cheese" in a more direct causal framing. Other views, like the Drift Model, Safety-I/Safety-II, or Leveson's System-Theoretic models are not mentioned, despite being "newer" and having useful perspectives to the author.
Another example here is how the author ties historic improvements of anesthesiology's safety to tort law (pre-reform) prompting changes, whereas other more specialized sources (say, Still Not Safe: Patient Safety and the Middle-Managing of American Medicine by Wears and Sutcliffe) show that many of the improvement came from shifts in how incidents were handled—away from heavy statistical approaches and leaning more on deep qualitative investigations.
These small stretches jumping between theories or frameworks are a bit clumsy to someone more familiar with each of them individually, and tends to paper over some of the rich local mess of these views to tie them to a broader (and blunter) sociopolitical American perspective.
This is still relevant, don't get me wrong, but I think they're a trade-off between academic accuracy and popularization of its concepts. This is not, after all, another safety-specific publication, but a journalistic type of essay, which does a lot better than I had initially expected.
August 11, 2023
My biggest fear is getting killed on the streets of my city by a driver in an SUV. One human mistake is enough to end my life when we have built our environment to prioritize speed, efficiency, business, and cars over people's lives.
I have a strong personal and policy interest in this book, and Singer gave me a lot to chew on. She did her best work convincing me that business and capitalism specifically, but institutions more generally, have a strong interest in blaming the victim of a disaster. She also capitalized well on the current focus on racism and economic inequality to show how these make the United States a laggard in "accident" prevention. Her history of "accident" death rates in the United States was very illuminating and her examination of important figures in the history of "accident" prevention quite insightful. It is books like these that slowly sour my view on capitalism and America.
There are two threads though that chip away at (some of) her arguments:
1. She did not address moral hazard. I have seen a study showing that increasing the availability of naloxone does not in fact reduce the overdose death rate because drug users are willing to use more of their substance. I have also heard about moral hazard in the context of snowboarder speeds when helmets are made available, and insurance too.
2. She seems to argue that there is no amount of money that is not worth spending on accident prevention. I wish she had addressed the US DOT's calculation of the life of a person - $12-15 million as I recall. Does she think any amount of money spent on "accident" prevention is well-spent?
I will never use the word "accident" again; any event that kills or maims another person should be termed a disaster, and it was likely preventable by those in power
I have a strong personal and policy interest in this book, and Singer gave me a lot to chew on. She did her best work convincing me that business and capitalism specifically, but institutions more generally, have a strong interest in blaming the victim of a disaster. She also capitalized well on the current focus on racism and economic inequality to show how these make the United States a laggard in "accident" prevention. Her history of "accident" death rates in the United States was very illuminating and her examination of important figures in the history of "accident" prevention quite insightful. It is books like these that slowly sour my view on capitalism and America.
There are two threads though that chip away at (some of) her arguments:
1. She did not address moral hazard. I have seen a study showing that increasing the availability of naloxone does not in fact reduce the overdose death rate because drug users are willing to use more of their substance. I have also heard about moral hazard in the context of snowboarder speeds when helmets are made available, and insurance too.
2. She seems to argue that there is no amount of money that is not worth spending on accident prevention. I wish she had addressed the US DOT's calculation of the life of a person - $12-15 million as I recall. Does she think any amount of money spent on "accident" prevention is well-spent?
I will never use the word "accident" again; any event that kills or maims another person should be termed a disaster, and it was likely preventable by those in power
October 18, 2023
This book is frightening because of how preventable many accidents are, and how they aren't prevented because it might cut into corporate profits, or just not be relevant to the people that society considers worth protecting from accidental death or injury.
It mostly focuses on traffic accidents and the many ways that our highways and roads are designed for the flow of cars above all else, including survival of those who use them. She makes very clear points about how roads and even cars could be better-designed so that fewer people die each year, and that many car accidents/pedestrian accidents are completely predictable.
She also brings up workplace injuries and how until there were real monetary costs to businesses for injuries to workers, there was no incentive for them to make workplaces safe.
Singer also comes to this subject due to the loss of her best friend, who was killed by a drunk driver while riding his bike, so even though this could have been a very dry, facts-based book, she doesn't shy away from incorporating her personal experience and emotions into it. The portion about groups that work to prevent traffic accidents after losing loved ones especially brought in the rage and sadness that people feel when they realize that their loss could have been prevented.
This is a very important book, especially in a time when a lot of consumer protections are being dismantled and there are more and more restrictions on holding companies accountable for the harms they cause, both to workers and to consumers. The part on Uber's self-driving cars and how they are totally unregulated even after killing people was especially concerning.
I definitely recommend this book - it's one of the best I've read this year, and also calls out capitalism for being at the root of a lot of these problems.
It mostly focuses on traffic accidents and the many ways that our highways and roads are designed for the flow of cars above all else, including survival of those who use them. She makes very clear points about how roads and even cars could be better-designed so that fewer people die each year, and that many car accidents/pedestrian accidents are completely predictable.
She also brings up workplace injuries and how until there were real monetary costs to businesses for injuries to workers, there was no incentive for them to make workplaces safe.
Singer also comes to this subject due to the loss of her best friend, who was killed by a drunk driver while riding his bike, so even though this could have been a very dry, facts-based book, she doesn't shy away from incorporating her personal experience and emotions into it. The portion about groups that work to prevent traffic accidents after losing loved ones especially brought in the rage and sadness that people feel when they realize that their loss could have been prevented.
This is a very important book, especially in a time when a lot of consumer protections are being dismantled and there are more and more restrictions on holding companies accountable for the harms they cause, both to workers and to consumers. The part on Uber's self-driving cars and how they are totally unregulated even after killing people was especially concerning.
I definitely recommend this book - it's one of the best I've read this year, and also calls out capitalism for being at the root of a lot of these problems.
April 4, 2022
Quick Take: Many accidents can be prevented if we solve the systemic problems that caused the accidents in the first place.
There are No Accidents by Jessie Singer is a reframing of the word “accident.” What does it mean to die or be seriously I injured by “accident?” What is an “accident?” Who gets to lead the narrative after an “accident?” These are the questions Singer strives to answer in her book.
After Singer’s best friend died by being hit by a drunk driver, she began to question the nature of accidents. She found that often the transgressor gets to define what happens after someone is seriously injured or killed. In her friend's case, the drunk driver said he was going slower than he was and drank less. In a macro sense, companies and governments often claim people are injured in “accidents” when it was in fact a systemic problem not human error.
One of the issues with blaming accidents on human error vs. a system is that unless something is changed WITHIN the system, accidents will happen again and again. In some ways, this book reminded me of what happens with Boeing in Flying Blind by Peter Robison. During the Boeing 737 Max accidents, Boeing blamed the pilots instead of their own company’s systematic errors that were actually at fault.
Many uses of the word “accident” are explored in this book including “accidental” overdose, car “accident”, “accidental” fire, etc. Singer also explores how racism, poverty and stigma affect whether something is considered and “accident” or not.
I picked this book up on a whim and am glad I did. I will never think about the word accident in the same way and will forevermore consider the system forces at play when it comes to “accidents.” I would recommend this book to everyone.
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Non-Fiction
There are No Accidents by Jessie Singer is a reframing of the word “accident.” What does it mean to die or be seriously I injured by “accident?” What is an “accident?” Who gets to lead the narrative after an “accident?” These are the questions Singer strives to answer in her book.
After Singer’s best friend died by being hit by a drunk driver, she began to question the nature of accidents. She found that often the transgressor gets to define what happens after someone is seriously injured or killed. In her friend's case, the drunk driver said he was going slower than he was and drank less. In a macro sense, companies and governments often claim people are injured in “accidents” when it was in fact a systemic problem not human error.
One of the issues with blaming accidents on human error vs. a system is that unless something is changed WITHIN the system, accidents will happen again and again. In some ways, this book reminded me of what happens with Boeing in Flying Blind by Peter Robison. During the Boeing 737 Max accidents, Boeing blamed the pilots instead of their own company’s systematic errors that were actually at fault.
Many uses of the word “accident” are explored in this book including “accidental” overdose, car “accident”, “accidental” fire, etc. Singer also explores how racism, poverty and stigma affect whether something is considered and “accident” or not.
I picked this book up on a whim and am glad I did. I will never think about the word accident in the same way and will forevermore consider the system forces at play when it comes to “accidents.” I would recommend this book to everyone.
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Non-Fiction
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