“With so many people killed on our roads, we have to speak clearly”

2,780 people “lost their lives” on German roads last year – as reported by the Federal Statistical Office in late February 2025. Media reports on this death toll adopted a detached tone. When a person is killed in a traffic incident, their death is usually reported along these lines: The victim succumbed to their injuries ... Or: the victim suffered fatal injuries.

The recently published guide Unfallsprache – Sprachunfall (The language of accidents - An accident of language) takes a critical look at reporting on road fatalities. Specialists in linguistics and social sciences from the Research Institute for Sustainability (RIFS), the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE) at the University of Bern and the Institute for Linguistics at the University of Vienna, as well as experts from the police, mobility planning, and the media, analysed numerous reports on accidents from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The experts found that road accidents are usually portrayed as acts of fate and are almost always described as isolated events.

“How we talk about accidents shapes our understanding of responsibility and prevention,” says linguist Hugo Caviola, who led the project. “Yet police and media reports on road accidents are often brief and formulaic, leading people to perceive them as unavoidable.” RIFS researcher Dirk von Schneidemesser, who co-authored the guide, adds: “What is not mentioned is just as important as what is. Only around five per cent of accident reports include statistics – and without this context, collisions seem like isolated incidents. But with over 2,500 deaths and more than 280,000 injuries per year, it’s very clear that there is nothing coincidental about traffic violence – the problem is systemic. Solutions are readily available - they just need to be prioritised.”
 

Guidelines for more precise reporting

The guide is aimed in particular at the police and media, however it also draws attention to our shared responsibility for road safety.

The guide offers five recommendations:Avoid presenting accidents as acts of fate. Instead, highlight human actors. For example: “A driver and a cyclist collided” instead of “There was an accident”.

• Identify the persons involved and their actions. For example: “Pedestrian struck by cyclist” instead of “Pedestrian struck”.
• Clearly attribute the perspectives of involved persons. For example: “The driver stated that he had overlooked the pedestrian” rather than “The driver overlooked the pedestrian”.
• Clearly identify the status of the investigation. For example: “It is not known how fast the driver was travelling” instead of “The background to the accident is under investigation”.
• Contextualize incidents. For example: “This is the fourth collision at this intersection this year”.
  
   

“Using more precise language can help people to understand that road accidents occur within a system that can be changed, rather than individual calamities,” says Hugo Caviola. “Because, with so many people killed on our roads, we have to speak plainly.”

Three versions of the guide are available –  the full-length guide, an abridged version and a factsheet – in print and digital formats.

The guide is available in German only and can be downloaded here: https://sprachkompass.ch/themen/verkehr/sprachunfall-unfallsprache 

Print copies are also available free of charge. To order, please contact info [at] sprachkompass [dot] ch (info[at]sprachkompass[dot]ch)