We should be banning the 2wd vheicles too. More of us on 1wd vheicles means the roads will last longer and there will be far less congestion and pollution. And, by the way, my money is where my mouth is - I own one, and use it daily. ;-p

Along the same lines is when the report states that the road is dangerous. Used accordingly a road is not dangerous. And who is to say what the correct height for a car is. I like the higher driving position, as it is far easier to get in and out of a vehicle.

There was an article several weeks back titled "Bus hits pedestrian", whereas the description of the incident in the article made it clear that it was in fact the pedestrian who had walked into the bus.

A 1wd vehicle? You unicycle to work? Excellent - are you that guy who juggles in the square?

Seriously though, I didn't get the implication that the larger vehicle was responsible for hitting the smaller one from the headline. I did think the bus was the only vehicle involved.

Every motorcycle accident is reported as "motorcycle collides...." irrespective of whether or not that is factually true.

The media have the same issue when reporting level crossing accidents on the railway network. Its always "Train hits car" or "Truck damaged after being hit by a train". The trains can't aim for these vehicles. If the train hits a car 99.999999% of the time it will be the fault of the vehicle driver not the locomotive engineer. Bottom line is that if a crash occurs at a level crossing the vehcile driver had to have ignored warning signs or flashing lights or just not bothered looking to end up on the tracks as the train is going through.

You,re right Dave. Lazy journalism. Is there no qualification to be a journalist anymore?

I think that the general standard of journalism, and then the editing, has dropped considerably across the board.I am always amazed (although by now not surprised) at the amount of stories published with a sensational heading that turns out to be incorrect or misleading. I am even more stunned by the bloggers who fail to actually read the article before commenting on the headline alone.(And yes, I did read your article - I just think it goes further than cars and accidents)

Why is it that an incident in the USA can be swiftly reported to us with a clarity than is completely absent from any news reports from New Zealand?

Often, within an hour, we can be listening to a radio interview with an American Police spokesman explaining in some detail exactly what happened.

Here the journalists seem to be unable or unwilling to find out any facts at all, and we are forced to wait until any "official enquiries" are over - maybe more than a year later - before we know what went on.

If you are actually witness to something, it can be very disconcerting to read, watch or hear the ensuing news report. The reporter usually gets things so wrong that you wonder if they are describing the same thing you saw with your own eyes.

Last time I looked, my mountain bike was only one wheel drive. I don't have the energy to drive any more wheels than that. But I rarely ride a bike on the road, it's too dangerous.

As for losing control, it is rare that a driver can have no influence whatever on his vehicle's motion. Usually there are many options.

As soon as a vehicle is moving, the driver has lost some control. For example, there is a distance within which it is impossible to bring it to a halt, and the faster it is going, the longer that distance becomes. The degree of control is also varying constantly and widely with road conditions: corners, slope, water, ice, gravel, clay, etc, etc. The vehicle's tyres, brakes and suspension will suit some roads and not others.

"The car lost control"? Usually the truth is that the driver just plain ran out of skill. And the journalist just got lazy.

Me thinks this is a light story day. True, headlines are not accurate but that is so for most stories in papers and on the web. The headline is constructed to catch attention. What gets me is once you've got past the headline is when the story perpetuates the myth. Point taken about cars losing control, it is the driver who loses control of the vehicle. Roads are not unsafe when driven on appropriately, but some roads are safer by design than others...