what's the difference between accident and incident?

Accident:
-An accident is something going wrong unexpectedly. Physical examples include an unavoidable collision (including a person or object falling by chance). The term is also loosely applied to mean any undesirable outcome, even if it could have been avoided, such as getting injured by touching something sharp, hot, electrically live, ingesting poisons, or other injuries caused by lack of ordinary precautions.
-A sudden, unexpected, unusual, specific, violent, external event which results in a Loss.
-any occurrence which results in personal injury, disease or death, or property damage.

Technically, accidents do not include incidents where someone is at fault (e.g. negligent); for example, if someone fails to take reasonable precautions in the circumstances. If the results of such negligence were foreseeable, they were not accidental, and the negligent person can be held responsible for any consequences of such negligence. In an "accident", nobody can really be held liable because the event was unforeseeable or very unlikely (for example, if one's computer is knocked over by a friend unintentionally, it was accident; however, one could blame the friend for being careless).

Often, accidents are investigated so that we can learn how to avoid them in the future. This is sometimes called root cause analysis, but does not generally apply to accidents that cannot be predicted with any certainty. For example, a root cause of a purely random incident may never be identified, and thus future similar accidents remain "accidental."

Incident:
-a single distinct event
-An event that has caused or has the potential to cause damage to an organization's business systems, facilities, or personnel.
-An incident is an occurrence or event.

accident 是纯意外，没有人需要负责。incident也是意外，但是有人要负责。
比如说：烧菜的时候油溅到皮肤上烫伤了，这个就是accident。如果你冲开水不小心烫到了自己的脚，那就是incident了。.

生活中accident比较多，incident相对少。.

Thanks!.

那么车祸不是要人负责的么？
为何是accident？.

几种说法
accident vs. incident

"7:13 PM 09/08/05 Incident
Freewy 123 Northbound after YY RD
Accident: SOLO CAR CRASH, BLOCKING THE LEFT LANE "

1. What's the difference between a (traffic) incident and accident?
2. Can you call a car accident an incident?
3. Can you call an incident an accident?
4. Is it true that an accident is an incident but not vice versa?



1. An incident is in general something that happens. A drive-byshooting on the freeway is an incident, but not an accident.
2. I believe police reports might call a car accident an incident, but it's not the most common way to refer to it.
3. I wouldn't call an incident an accident unless it were an accident!
4. Yes. I would say so, if you mean this in the sense that accidents are a subset of incidents.


An accident is something that happens outside of intent.

An incident simply refers to something that has happened intentionally or not.

Wetting the bed is both an incident and [normally] an accident.

Throwing oneself in front of a train is an incident, not an accident.

Falling in front of a train is both an incident and an accident.

All accidents can be considered incidents, but all incidents cannot be considered accidents.

感觉这里好像说accident是incident的子集。.

自己惹出来的是incident
这样理解可以伐？.

也不对，那别人惹出来的就不是incident了吗？.

那么
天灾是accident
人祸是incident
呢？.

（转载）
accident是“意外事”．通常指偶然发生 的不幸事件或事故；
incident是“事情”或“事件”， 它既可以指日常生活中的琐事，也可以指外交、政治 方面的重大事件。 某些情况下unexpected incident可以理解为accident。

•An accident is a negative incident whereas an incident can either be negative or positive.
•An accident is an unexpected event whereas an incident would not be termed as something unexpected.
•Any occurrence that is worthy of mentioning would be defined as incidents whereas only unfortunate situations are referred to as accidents..

同意！我不是英语专家，不过对这两个词的理解就是这样。顶楼的解释好像律师在讲究法律用语一样，一般人对这两个词的理解就是简单如包包所写。.