Like everyone else I have my pet peeves. For example I don't like the use of "enormity" to mean "great size".
The real peevers though, or so I thought until today, are the ones who insist on things like "decimate" having to mean destroy one tenth simply because of the dec-.

As I say, until today because now I realise that those guys are amateurs compared to Simon Heffer who not only believes that you cannot say "They warned that it was unsafe" without specifying who exactly was being warned but apparently also believes that it isn't possible to collide with a stationary object because buried in the root of the verb is the Latin collidere "to strike together".

This is peevology of a whole new level. Can there seriously be people who believe that "I collided with the tree." is ungrammatical?

Sometimes I despair.

What did the tree opine?

Being peevology-inclined, I must resist condemning much that is currently accepted, but I see nothing wrong with "collide" being used as in your example.

Geoff, don't you ever get sycamore puns?

Sometimes I despair.

And, sometimes I just have to laugh out loud. I think the Language Log folks are on the right track: it would be impossible to convince Mr Heffer that he is wrong. So, why try?