Say 'drivers', not 'cars': it's the people in inside the boxes that do the stuff

Are people saying that instead of saying 'he was hit by a car' they would rather read 'he was hit by a man/woman/person driving a car'? Because that could imply that someone was driving a car, stopped the car, got out and delivered a punch - or maybe even hit out from within the vehicle.

It's a journalist's function to report with a sense of disassociation. Do you really want the news to read like an exert from Michael Herr's Dispatches?

"The driver careered their car carelessly, the person riding the bicycle being the unfortunate victim of the callous, maddening impact that would result, leaving behind a family who'd never really get over their loss. No matter how many accidents - or aftermaths of - I saw, it didn't get any easier; the smell of spilled petrol, the sight of twisted spokes, fractured helmets - blood occasionally - conspired to leave one feeling helpless, but fortunate too. I didn't have to be there, by that road, and I was hated for it. You could see it in their eyes; the paramedics, the fire officers and junior constables. I learned to take it, move on, but it wouldn't stop there: sleepless nights, generic flashbacks, dystopian images of contorted bodies, innocents caught in the crossfire of that bitter, senseless fight for who controlled the road."

Give over.