Passive Accident Speak

Lately, my urban planning/transportation enthusiast/etc personality has manifested as a bitter speaker against passive "accident" speak. A couple weeks ago, a woman was driving to work in a suburb of Chicago when she crashed her car into a building a died. The article stated "woman on her way to work dies when her car crashes into building" and in the actual text of the article it never mentioned that she was even driving, just that the car, somehow on it's own I guess, crashed into the building, maybe with the intent to murder her... I'm not really sure. However, today, I discovered a new low in passive accident writing when I saw this article title on the Chicago Tribune website:

In the Tribune's defense, the article itself was not quite as passive, but really "Man leans out car window, killed by parked car" ummm.... I'm not really sure how the parked car decided to kill the man, but, I guess so. Granted, I think the title would be a little long if it said something like "Man leans out car window and was dragged out of said car when driver got close to parked cars and he did not pull himself back in in time for him to hit a parked car on the side of the road" but.. it could have said "killed when hitting a parked car" or something a little bit more related to the fact that the parked car did NOTHING in this whole process, except be parked on the side of the road. Don't get me wrong, I hate parking, and cars kinda in general, but .... it irks me that the responsibility of this crash (not accident!) is placed on the parked car in this title.

And with that, I will end my bitter rant... for now.

R