The art outside of combat

[Spodo Komodo]

When some idiot tried to wind a shunting chain around the capstan at speed my practice at avoiding leg sweeps by dropping into cat stance probably saved my lower leg being torn off at the knee.

[Shizentai]

You know, I am a very clumsy person, so I unfortunately have more stories than most.

One day after I had spent all of the previous night doing rolling drills I took my bike out for a ride and almost immediately collided with a car. My bike went under the car, but I rolled over and off the side of the hood, then began front rolls when I made contact with the ground. So many rolls! Eventually when I stopped, I realized that despite wearing no protective equipment or even shoes (typical stupid 14-year-old), I had nothing more than a skinned knee and elbow. My head hadn't even touched the ground. Since that day, I ALWAYS train rolling and falling on my own.

This year, more than 10 years later, I was unfortunately in another bike/car accident. This time I was struck by a hit-and-run sports-car driver that ran a stop sign and hit me from the side. As I saw him go from slowing down to speeding up at the last moment, I tried to slam my breaks and turn my bike into the same direction he was traveling, then at the last moment I tossed my left leg over the top of the bike to avoid it scraping along between the two vehicles. As we made contact, I ended up doing a swift 360 then a nice gentle side-fall onto the curb. I got away with just a small scratch on my right leg from where the front wheel of my bicycle bent clean around and pinched me little, but the man in the car drove off with a nice well-dented side panel and possibly a smashed headlight. Sadly, my glasses fell off in the incident so I couldn't make out his plate number as he sped away... but probably the damage he did to his car has him feeling a little regretful.

[JusticeZero]

That wasn't an accident. *linguistic pet peeve* "Oh, Bob got drunk and walked out into a crowd with a rifle and fired off a couple of rounds in a random direction. One of the bullets hit someone! Whoopsie! It was an accident!"

Had a friend I was teaching a few things. He was working as a car mechanic at the time. After a few lessons, he came up and thanked me for the practice moving around on the ground, as he no longer had pain from moving around under trucks working on them.

Later he had to put carpet in at a house, and made much better headway than the previous time. We'd been drilling some knee strikes and how to use the core muscles to move the leg, so rather than jerking his leg to knee the carpet into place, he was using his abs and such, and clobbering the carpet into place without getting tired.

[Shizentai]

That wasn't an accident. *linguistic pet peeve* "Oh, Bob got drunk and walked out into a crowd with a rifle and fired off a couple of rounds in a random direction. One of the bullets hit someone! Whoopsie! It was an accident!"

I wasn't trying to suggest that the driver was not responsible. I just meant to use "car accident" as an accepted colloquialism meaning a collision involving one or more moving motor vehicles. I would have used "collision" again, but it seemed too repetitive. I assure you that at the time I was quite upset with my assailant... mostly because I had just ridden 28 miles, I was hungry for lunch, I was 2 miles from my house and before I could get home I had to to sit on the pavement in the hot sun and unbend my front wheel and handlebars with my bare hands (since no one would stop to help me for some reason). In retrospect I'm thankful I was able to walk away though (which is oddly enough, exactly what I ended up doing).

But what am I telling you this for? You live around here! I'm sure you know how people drive.

[JusticeZero]

I don't accept the 'colloquialism' because i've watched how the 'colloquialism' is used later to absolve the perpetrators of guilt and responsibility.

I have a relative who killed someone with a car that they had been allowed to use. There is a woman who was innocent of wrongdoing broke down on the side of the road. Now she is dead, and her family has to deal with the loss. The shoulder of the road was maybe a couple feet less wide than it might have been, so it might take a minor bit of cognition to avoid a stopped car with a little bit of it poking onto the traffic lane. What is the verdict from my family?

"I was drunk, stoned, talking with friends, and speeding on an icy road and there was someone in the way... it was an accident. Nobody can control that. Gimme another beer."

"Oh, I can't be angry with him. It's called an accident. It wasn't his fault."

There's plenty of other words. Crash, wreck, incident, smash-up..

[honoluludesktop]

I don't make too big a deal regarding the art outside of combat. Any physical sport or activity provides useful real world skills.

As for using the word "accident", there are different meanings that fit different situations. Sorry that you experienced a person who tried to disclaim responsibility for hurting someone close to you, but Shizentai had an accident* on her bike didn't she? In this case, the driver of the car was responsible (running the light), and it appears that no one excused him. We shouldn't criticize the victim.

*A unplanned, unexpected (on her part) event.

[JusticeZero]

Shizentai didn't have an accident, she was doing what she was supposed to do when she was supposed to do. Someone else smashed their car into her. That's about as "accidental" as a mugging.

And you misunderstand, it is the relative who was the perpetrator, and other relatives who forgive the act because it was an "accident". An extremely preventable, needless, and horrific "accident", which could have been easily avoided by avoiding impairing the heck out of themself and/or paying attention to the road while operating a speeding block of metal.

A car is a weapon just the same as a knife, an axe, or a hammer. Arguably, it is more of a weapon; cars are the leading cause of death for everyone between the age of 3 and 30 worldwide. If I walk into a crowd twirling a machete around while reading a novel and not looking at where I am going, is it an "accident" if I cut someone? No, most sensible people would say that I am being reckless, and am at full fault for any injuries I cause.

Why is it then that a person, who has a suspended licence after an arbitrarily large number of driving offenses (some of which include "driving with a suspended license") could impair themselves into a stupor, have medical issues, take their hands completely off the wheel while they are reading, while the window is completely opaque from frost, moving fifty miles an hour faster than the legal maximum speed permissable, and when they slam their vehicle into a crowd of children, it is referred to as an "Accident" merely because their weapon of choice has four wheels and an engine?

Recently in Georgia, a mother crossed the road at a bus stop, about 2,000 feet in either direction from a crosswalk, with her children. Someone was driving recklessly and ran through the line of people crossing and killed one of the children. Because he had an "accident", he got at most 6 months for his failure to pay attention. The mother, however, was convicted of vehicular manslaughter and has been sentenced to three years in prison.

An "accident" is like an apology. It is measured by the actions following to prevent it's repeat. There had been fairly little done to prevent "accidents" on the road; it is not accidental anymore.

[honoluludesktop]

Shizentai didn't have an accident.....

??????? I understand your pain, but did you follow the link?

One definition of accident: a unplanned, unexpected event for Shizentai.

[JusticeZero]

If you are ambushed by muggers who have cased the area out and laid a trap specifically for you, do you consider it an "accident"? Certainly according to that definition, the attack is indeed accidental.

[MasterPain]

There is a difference between reckless stupidity and malicious intent. Intent is what makes the difference between involuntary manslaughter and murder. The former is still an accident, though one with one party seriously at fault. The latter is the intentional killing of another person.

"Accident", to me, does not imply lack of fault, but lack of intent.