jQuery/JavaScript collision detection

var overlaps = (function () {
    function getPositions( elem ) {
        var pos, width, height;
        pos = $( elem ).position();
        width = $( elem ).width();
        height = $( elem ).height();
        return [ [ pos.left, pos.left + width ], [ pos.top, pos.top + height ] ];
    }

    function comparePositions( p1, p2 ) {
        var r1, r2;
        r1 = p1[0] < p2[0] ? p1 : p2;
        r2 = p1[0] < p2[0] ? p2 : p1;
        return r1[1] > r2[0] || r1[0] === r2[0];
    }

    return function ( a, b ) {
        var pos1 = getPositions( a ),
            pos2 = getPositions( b );
        return comparePositions( pos1[0], pos2[0] ) && comparePositions( pos1[1], pos2[1] );
    };
})();

$(function () {
    var area = $( '#area' )[0],
        box = $( '#box0' )[0],
        html;
    
    html = $( area ).children().not( box ).map( function ( i ) {
        return '<p>Red box + Box ' + ( i + 1 ) + ' = ' + overlaps( box, this ) + '</p>';
    }).get().join( '' );

    $( 'body' ).append( html );
});

body {
    padding: 30px;
    color: #444;
    font-family: Arial, sans-serif;
}

h1 {
    font-size: 24px;
    margin-bottom: 20px;
}

#area {
    border: 2px solid gray;
    width: 500px;
    height: 400px;
    position: relative;
}

#area > div {
    background-color: rgba(122, 122, 122, 0.3);
    position: absolute;
    text-align: center;
    font-size: 50px;
    width: 60px;
    height: 60px;
}

#box0 {
    background-color: rgba(255, 0, 0, 0.5) !important;
    top: 150px;
    left: 150px;
}

#box1 {
    top: 260px;
    left: 50px;
}

#box2 {
    top: 110px;
    left: 160px;
}

#box3 {
    top: 200px;
    left: 200px;
}

#box4 {
    top: 50px;
    left: 400px;
}

p {
    margin: 5px 0;
}

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<h1>Detect overlapping with JavaScript</h1>
<div id="area">
    <div id="box0"></div>
    <div id="box1">1</div>
    <div id="box2">2</div>
    <div id="box3">3</div>
    <div id="box4">4</div>
</div>

General idea – you get the offset and dimension of the boxes and check whether they overlap.

If you want it to update, you can use setInterval:

function detectOverlapping() {
    // code that detects if the box overlaps with a moving box
    setInterval(detectOverlapping, 25);
}

detectOverlapping();

Also, note that you can optimize the function for your specific example.

you don’t have to read the box dimensions repeatedly (like I do in my code) since they are fixed. You can read them on page load (into a variable) and then just read the variable
the horizontal position of the little box does not change (unless the user resizes the window). The vertical positions of the car boxes does not change. Therefore, those values also do not have to be read repeatedly, but can also be stored into variables.
you don’t have to test whether the little box overlaps with all car boxes at all times. You can – based on its vertical position – figure out in which lane the box is currently, and test only the specific car box from that lane.

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