There's a difference between the driver intentionally driving into crowd, and not intentionally but possibly still recklessly (drifting and losing control, falling asleep, etc). In those cases I would probably use "car hits the crowd", at least in my language
There may be a difference in degree of the crime but the driver is still responsible in both cases and should be the primary subject of any reporting.
Let's reserve "car hits the crowd" for situations where no driver was involved like a break failure on a car parked on a slope or a self-driving car bug.