Jim Logajan schrieb:

"near miss" collision synonym
And this was returned as the first result:
http://freethesaurus.net/s.php?q=collision

If a free web site with unknown sources claims so, then is *must* be true.

On the other hand, the OED (Oxford English Dictionary, the big one) says:
"near miss, a shot that only just misses a target"
But since it's neither on the web nor free, I wouldn't trust it.

The idiom is probably confusing to people learning the
English language.

Well, English was only the third language I've learn't in school. But I
must admit that I have never been particularly confused by the
difference between near and nearly.