Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, If he will make an assessment of the potential merits of changing the terminology of road traffic accidents to crashes or collisions.

Where possible, the Department no longer uses the word ‘accidents’. The appropriate terms to use are ‘crashes’, ‘collisions’ and ‘incidents’. We encourage others to do so, too.

However, the word ‘accident’ continues to be used in certain circumstances, for example where that is the term previously used in legislation.