Collide and Crash

This is not the first time I have run into this predicament. Still, it came up in class on Monday, and while I was night editing at The Daily Illini on Wednesday.

The Associated Press says that to use "collide" or "collision," both objects must be in motion. This showed up in a fake news story the class edited on Monday, when a person crashed into a pole. The original version of the story said the man "collided with the pole," when in fact, the pole was not in motion.

On Tuesday night at The Daily Illini, we had a photo on the front cover of a car hitting the back of the bus. The copy editor and I spent a few minutes looking at the photo, wondering if we could call this a "collision." After all, we determined that both autos were moving at the time they struck each other. Still, the photo made it clear that the car rear-ended the bus.

We decided to play it safe and use "hits" instead. Even though the photo's caption said "collided," we still wanted to play it safe for a photo headline. The car and the bus were not heading towards each other in this case, so our instict was to not call it a collision.

This is a hazy rule in that case though. Do two things have to be heading towards each other for it to be considered a collision, or do they just have to be in motion? The Associated Press does not clarify this one...