Near Miss?

I never understood the origin of the term "near miss". Wouldn't a "near miss", in fact, result in an actual collision? I think when describing a close call one should use the terms "near collision", "close call", or "holy crap!"...

Of course, I could be confusing this term with "nearly missed"...

I don't know. Discuss. My head hurts...

Oh, and these planes were both well within safety parameters during taxi and takeoff at PHX. Just a cool juxtaposition I noticed while killing time in Terminal 2.