@catnap posted:It's implied their was a driver just like it's implied their was an engineer operating the train.
Would it make you feel better if the headline read, "Driver Crosses Path of Engineer in Car-Train Collision"?
Indeed. The rhetorical device used is called metonymy, and it substitutes one associated term for another. An example is referring to the president as the White House, as in: The White House announced new measures it will take to support [insert waste of money here]. No one envisions the building talking just as no one envisions the car operating on its own (unless its name is Christine). The absolutely correct effect of the announcements quoted is to assign responsibility to the car driver, NOT to the train. None of those examples supports a claim of poor journalism historically.
