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The idea that you're "not that impaired" is a fancy in your head with no basis in objective measurements.

That is very true, and something that many people don't understand. But what about the GP's other question?

What about the old bat that is more impaired than either of us [due to] age?

Here's a nice link that presents some data regarding elderly drivers and gently suggests that some elderly people shouldn't be driving. But it's the comments below the article that really make the point: They read just like the stories of people who have lost loved ones to drunk drivers. Where is the outrage over this? Where are the Mothers Against Seniors Driving? Where are the legions of smarmy self-righteous do-gooders telling Granny she's an existential threat to everyone else on the road and that she should just get a taxi?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to minimize the threat of drunk drivers. I'm all for harsh penalties for drunk driving. I'd even go for a lifetime revocation of driving privileges for those convicted of DUI. But if we're going to play hardball with impaired drivers, let's not forget about the ones who are always impaired.

What's that? How are all those blind, arthritic, doped-up old people supposed to get around if they can't drive? I don't know, maybe put in some decent public transportation in America. That way our seniors can maintain their independence, I can go out and have a couple of pints, and everyone spry and sober enough to drive safely can go about their business, and we can all get home with our lives and without blood on our hands.

Hell, we could even use the DUI fines to pay for it. What do you think would help your community more? Yet another prison, or a bus system worth half a shit?

Oooh, the topic is driving? *steps on soapbox

Who cares where your hands are? There is one rule of safe driving that should always be mentioned b/c it sums everything up:

You must pay enough attention.

That's it. If you drive with with your pinky toe and avoid all accidents, then that's safer than 10/pi and accident-prone. And yes, you can avoid almost all accidents by paying attention. I've twice gotten out of the way when stopped and the car behind me almost plowed through me because I was watching the rear-view mirror. I've avoided a drunk(?) driver running through the light when I had the green arrow b/c I was watching him. 23 years of driving more 'dangerously' than 99% of you, and just one $600 accident. Why? I stopped paying attention (rule #2: don't get bored & start programming your radio when it's icey).

While I'm up here, I have a message to you bottleneckers: quit it! In fact, do the opposite. If the accident is on the other side of the freeway, quit looking and freakin gun it! If everyone were to gun it AT the bottleneck, guess what, there would no longer be a bottleneck!

Read about the waves:
http://www.smartmotorist.com/traffic-and-safety-guideline/traffic-jams.html

One reason not mentioned is that waves happen because stopping/slowing down is faster than speeding up, if you're lazy. I like to drive through the waves without touching the brakes, but flooring it when I'm at the front of the wave or bottleneck, and I save gas (net) doing it. If everyone (or even a % of us) were to leave space before the wave, then gun it at the front, the wave goes away! The 'gun it' part isn't mentioned in the article, but it makes sense to me. And don't get me wrong, don't gun it so much that you have to hit the brake to not hit the car in front of you, but gun it as much as possible. Also, keep an eye on the traffic colors of your GPS, so you know when your at the front of the wave, if it's that big.

Hrm, there ought to be a 'kill the waves' day to spread awareness.

So, lets say that Malibu is going its safe speed and you are going your safe speed. Now redo the test.

Because the cause of 95% of all automobile collisions involve driver behavior, then if we remove driver behavior from the equation, the incidence of the type of collision shown in the video would be reduced by 95%. That makes pretty much all cars safe.

The only thing safety ratings do is show how much the car protects the occupants from unsafe drivers. Remember, cars don't kill people, people kill people.

It's funny you should mention buses because by the sounds of things in TFA it was shared negligence on the part of bus drivers that caused the accident used to justify this recommendation:

The board made the recommendation in connection with a deadly highway pileup in Missouri last year. The board said the initial collision in the accident near Gray Summit, Mo., was caused by the inattention of a 19 year-old-pickup driver who sent or received 11 texts in the 11 minutes immediately before the crash.
The pickup, traveling at 55 mph, collided into the back of a tractor truck that had slowed for highway construction. The pickup was rear-ended by a school bus that overrode the smaller vehicle. A second school bus rammed into the back of the first bus.

Sounds to me like the bus drivers were following too closely, not paying attention or the school districts failed to properly maintain the braking systems on the buses. Perhaps a combination of all three. The initial accident may well have been the fault of texting but the subsequent involvement of the school buses could easily have been avoided. Properly attentive drivers maintain sufficient following distance to avoid becoming involved in an accident that happens ahead of them.

The three second rule would likely have prevented the buses from becoming involved in this accident. Why are there not any suggestions for improved school bus driver training attached to this recommendation?

What the hell are you talking about? Why are you assuming that only one applies to me? Where did I indicate which one was "my activity", and why would you try to claim that all activities are equally dangerous? It's not black and white.

I also understand there are very, very rare freak occurrences sometimes in life, so I'm not trying to be black and white about blame for accidents either, but consider this: greater than 95% of accidents are driver error, but only 5% of drivers admit to an accident being exclusively their fault ( http://www.smartmotorist.com/traffic-and-safety-guideline/what-causes-car-accidents.html ). People are far too quick to blame external factors for their own mistakes, and the roads would be a safer place if people were being more responsible. External factors do play a part in risk levels, and that's why you need to moderate your driving according to what you know.

For high speed accidents then unexpected failures would probably count for more (though I still think that 1 in 5 is giving people too much credit). Even at lower speeds though, there's still serious danger of maiming or killing pedestrians, so even those women on their cell phones are a danger.

I was taught that basically all accidents are human error. This page claims it's at least 95%. Too many people try to blame external factors when in fact the accident was avoidable. I really don't like to hear that someone crashed "because it was raining/icy/snowy". They crashed because they were driving too fast for the conditions.

False. Equipment fails, and a crash at 120 has four times the energy of a crash at 60, not double. We have the speed limits we have because they have been statistically shown to decrease deaths.

Actually, the statistics really don't show that. What you say was true back before seat belts and air bags. Now they're basically all about either traffic flow management or revenue. Less than 5% of all traffic accidents are caused by equipment failure, and even most of the remaining 5% can in many cases be avoided by minor changes, such as:

• Mandate that all new tires sold be of the run-flat variety
• Mandate tire pressure and temperature sensors to tell the car's guidance system to pull over to the side of the road in the event of a puncture or other high-risk situation. (Pressure sensors are already mandatory in the U.S.)
• Mandate sensors that detect low brake pad thickness to warn drivers, followed by preventing the vehicle from operating when they wear beyond a certain point.
• Make a basic axle check part of the biennial inspection process.

Heck, just getting rid of driver fatigue alone would cut accident rates by 30-50%.... That one change alone would completely overshadow any increase in deaths due to even quadrupling the number of deaths in the 5% of accidents that are caused by equipment failure.... Keep in mind that you're talking about quadrupling a rate that got smaller by a factor of 20, and that should put things back in the proper perspective.

But the mileage is a very real problem too. The most aerodynamic cars seem to get their best mileage around 80 mph, like my (past) 1989 240SX or my 1982 300SD. The rest get it around 55 or 60, like my 1992 F250. None of them get it at 120, nor ever will.

Gas mileage is at best a temporary concern. We'll be all-electric by then anyway, at which point it becomes a question of energy production, which does not inherently require fossil fuels.

The rolling traffic jam can be thought of as a queue. Cars are can enter the queue at any rate. However, cars can only leave the queue every 2 seconds. The reason is that if you were stopped behind another car, you wouldn't jam your gas pedal at the exact second the car in front of you does. You would wait until that car moves 20-30 feet before moving your own car. This delay adds up for every car in the queue (let's approximate 2 seconds). So if there were 100 cars in the queue you would need 200 seconds before the last car in the queue moves and essentially eliminating the traffic jam. However, if cars are entering the queue at a rate faster than every 2 seconds, then the queue is growing in size and the traffic jam will never end.

Further details and illustrations:
http://www.smartmotorist.com/traffic-and-safety-guideline/traffic-jams.html

Not sure if its Honda, but there's a debate that 9-3 is safer if the air bag deploys: http://www.smartmotorist.com/driving-guideline/hands-on-the-steering-wheel.html

Well this site indicates ABS isn't helping to reduce the number of accidents, even in wet weather. (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety)

Oddly enough, this writeup, referencing an IIHS study, mentions that cars with ABS actually have a higher fatality rate in single-vehicle collisions. The AAA Foundation for Highway Safety sheds more light on this issue.

Here is the NHTSA study. I'm too tired to look any more, but from what I've seen, I'm just as well off without ABS.

Despite the propaganda, only a tiny percentage of accidents are fully or even partially caused by speeding and the vast majority happen well within the speed limit.

Are you sure?

I read here "Speed was a factor in 30 percent (12,477) of all traffic fatalities in 1998, second only to alcohol (39 percent) as a cause of fatal crashes."

Google it.

I will.

You are correct -- intoxication is a factor in 39% of fatal crashes. High speed is a factor in "only" 30% of fatal accidents. Think of all those people, all of whom thought that they could handle the speed that they were travelling at...

Also, I'm not sure what in your links are intended to support your point. The only tidbit I could find in the first was that the fatality percentage in crashes on the Autobahn relative to fatalities in crashes on US Interstates is lower. If you read the rest of the page, you'll notice that the Autobahn is hardly representative of all the miles of the much larger US highway system. Read the Design section. It also isn't exactly a straightforward comparison due to the fact that a typical American car crash is going to involve heavier vehicles -- and even longer stopping distances.

I'm not at all sure what I'm supposed to read in the second link.

I use this method and find it a hell of a lot safer than the standard way. Maybe it varies from car to car but with this setup I can see a car passing me the entire time. It's either in a mirror or the corner of my eye.

Here are some links to the setup

here and here

Try this site: Adjusting Your Mirrors Correctly