The cause was easy enough to identify: Data parsed by Kuhls and her colleagues showed that drivers were speeding more, on highways and on surface streets, and plowing through intersections with an alarming frequency. Conversely, seatbelt use was down, resulting in thousands of injuries to unrestrained drivers and passengers. After a decade of steady decline, intoxicated-driving arrests had rebounded to near historic highs.
… The relationship between car size and injury rates is still being studied, but early research on the American appetite for horizon-blotting machinery points in precisely the direction you’d expect: The bigger the vehicle, the less visibility it affords, and the more destruction it can wreak.
Someone I knew got their license as an adult recently, and they were terrified at the lack of an actual “test” in the driving test. They drove around the block, never got above 35mph, and encountered a couple other cars.
And once you pass that, as long as you renew it and don’t have any violations, you can drive until you can’t see the gauges or hold the steering wheel.
We should have driving tests like the Finns have.