Accidental Killers: The Urgent Need For Transportation System Reform

In a sobering reality of life on the road, thousands of individuals lose their lives annually, not due to reckless or drunk driving, but in accidents involving drivers who were diligently obeying the law. Often, the finger of blame points towards a transportation system that heavily relies on automobiles.

Take the case of Jennifer Eikenhorst, a mother driving her daughters home after visiting a friend’s house. The incident occurred on a regional road, where she had stopped at the crest of a hill and failed to spot an oncoming motorcyclist.

The motorcyclist, named David, was unable to avoid the collision. From this tragic moment, Eikenhorst became what is termed a CADI, or Causing Accidental Death or Injury.

CADIs: The Unintentional Perpetrators

The term CADI was first used by the late Maryann Gray, who founded the Hyacinth Fellowship to provide the only emotional support and guidance to the unintentional cause of severe injury or death of another.

As Chris Yaw, the president of Hyacinth Fellowship, states, about 30,000 CADIs and their victims occur each year. A few percent of the accidental deaths were due to gun incidents and medical mistakes; however, vehicle accidents were responsible for the majority of the deaths.

This is what many of the CADI survivors have gone through, and it has motivated individuals such as Eikenhorst to raise their concerns over the nation’s transportation system that turns ordinary, law-abiding citizens into unintentional killers.

Eikenhorst also suggested various measures to enhance vehicle safety, including launching broad campaigns against distracted driving and promoting advanced safety features in vehicles.

Industry Response and The Road Ahead

In response, a prominent lobbying group called The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, representing nearly every major car manufacturer in the U.S., commented on the tragic incident, expressing its dedication to building safer cars. 

Automakers are committed to the safety of the vehicles they are building and are developing and deploying innovative technologies to continue enhancing their safety, as the group said. That includes external cameras, computer-controlled braking systems, and more and better blind-spot detection systems, some of which are already standard on some models. And yet pedestrian fatalities continue to grow, reaching a 40-year high in the U.S. in 2022.

A study by the New York Times also indicated a worrying trend of increasing traffic-related deaths in recent years.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported an alarming statistic for the first half of 2023: an estimated 19,515 deaths due to traffic accidents.

Living as a CADI

Accepting it wasn’t easy for Eikenhorst after a tragic 2016 motorcycle fatality where she wasn’t held criminally responsible. It was tough because she was a responsible, law-abiding driver who’d never had an accident or a ticket. She warned that it could happen to any of us, even if you think you’re a near-perfect driver.

CADIs don’t think of themselves as victims; Yaw said they view the actual victims as those from every accident. However, Yaw noted that there was a different kind of emotional hardship for the perpetrators than there was for other groups. Eikenhorst also underscored that with her CADI peers, who knew a unique brand of torment.

“In any accident, there’s someone who caused it that feels terrible,” Yaw stated.