Accident

Most car wrecks are not true accidents; however, English speakers started using that word in the mid-20th century as a result of media manipulation by the US automobile industry.

Non-physical examples are unintentionally revealing a secret or otherwise saying something incorrectly, accidental deletion of data, or forgetting an appointment.

[3] The use of the word accident to describe car wrecks was promoted by the US National Automobile Chamber of Commerce in the middle of the 20th century, as a way to make vehicle-related deaths and injuries seem like an unavoidable matter of fate, rather than a problem that could be addressed.

[3] Since 1994, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has asked media and the public to not use the word accident to describe vehicle collisions.

[11] Notable types and models include:[12] Ishikawa diagrams are sometimes used to illustrate root-cause analysis and five whys discussions.

Unintentional injury deaths per million persons in 2012
107–247
248–287
288–338
339–387
388–436
437–505
506–574
575–655
656–834
835–1,165
Versailles rail accident in 1842
Incidence of accidents (of a severity of resulting in seeking medical care), sorted by activity (in Denmark in 2002)
Accident triangles have been proposed to model the number of minor problems vs. the number of serious incidents. These include Heinrich's triangle [ 9 ] and Frank E. Bird's accident ratio triangle (proposed in 1966 and shown above).