I grew up in an era of steel dashboards (no padding), manual choke, three-on-the-tree, no seat belts, no airbags, no power steering, no power assist brakes, no ABS, no automatic traction control, no crumple zones, etc.
In short, the vehicles were 'primitive' by modern standards.
If you got into a head-on collision, odds were high in favor of you dying (helicopter evac and trauma units were in their infancy).
Even minor accidents meant you got hurt, sometimes severely.
High schools taught Driver's ed, not how to do what kids were adequately figuring out how to do without any help from 'educators', with a lower rate of out of wedlock births...despite cars having bigger back seats.
From general observation, people were better drivers over all, because failure to be competent behind the wheel meant your chances of getting killed were greater.
Now we have ABS, automatic traction/ride control, automatic transmissions with all wheel drive, cruise control, seatbelts, air bags, and crumple zones, not to mention much of the country covered by state-of-the art trauma response to accidents and Trauma centers in hospitals. Even the tools for victim extrication have been refined incredibly, and EMS training is tremendous by comparison. Even the anti-alcohol jihad has been going on for years, but the annual toll of automobile accidents remains in the tens of thousands.
We also have onboard navigation, DVD for the kiddies, cell phones, stereo systems, not to mention a host of things people do on the morning commute (aside from drinking a cup of coffee) which would be better done at home than on the road--because they feel they can(they aren't nearly as busy just driving).
And, yes, without scientific study, there seems to be a sort of 'SUV Syndrome' where drivers seem to get a feeling of invincibility from just being in a bigger vehicle--without regard for the kid in the little car who had the right-of-way, or the guy on the motorcycle they left turn in front of.
As long as people have the perception that they are insulated from the world outside their vehicle, and that an accident will likely not result in their being injured, they will not be paying attention.
BTW, I could see where it would get to be a game, cutting off Volvos to make the automatic brakes kick in...
One of the most odious duties that our nanny-state delegates to itself is to make driving idiot-proof for everybody, even if nobody ever asked them. I predict that one day cars will be so safe that only the very wealthy will be able to afford the mandatory equipment that makes them so. I've gotten away with driving small cars and motorcycles for almost forty years, and I'm alive to tell of it. The thought of dealing with a highway full of SUVs on auto-pilot is not a happy one.
‘BTW, I could see where it would get to be a game, cutting off Volvos to make the automatic brakes kick in... ‘
Someone told me they had a friend who always blew through 4 way stops. His reasoning was the odds of the other 3 guys running through it were too small to worry about.