Accidental uses of conventional force are surprisingly common in international crises, yet remain largely unstudied. This Element investigates how states and publics interpret and exploit such incidents through a preregistered survey experiment, a formal model, and structured case comparisons. The experiment shows that perceived intent strongly conditions audience reactions, imposing significant political costs on leaders who retaliate to claimed accidents. Building on this, the formal model demonstrates how the possibility of genuine accidents exacerbates information problems, creating incentives to misrepresent and sometimes producing escalation even after true accidents. It further specifies when accident claims function as signals of strength and when they convey weakness. Finally, two U.S.--China cases illustrate how suspicion of strategic gains from an accident magnifies mistrust, while two Turkey--Russia cases show how the salience of audience costs determines whether accident claims or acknowledgments of deliberate intent signal strength. Together, these findings identify a novel audience cost and show how accident claims reshape crisis bargaining with broader implications for signaling, reputation, and intentionality in IR.