[Pinch]

I do agree WMD351, but I believe that people not only rely on their own car's safety features to render them not-dead, but also rely on the safety features (and reaction times and skill) of other drivers and their cars not to render them dead from their own actions.

I often see driving in Sydney from 'those in charge of vehicles' (the term drivers does not adequately categorise them) who rely soley on the skill of other drivers and the safety features of other drivers' cars to avoid colliding with them as they do monumentally stupid things.

I think people operate their vehicles in this way for a number of reasons, all encompasing faith in modern vehcile safety being one, but simply not treating driving as a life and death process - every time you turn the key. One may feed the other. Doing something stupid years ago got you killed, now it just makes the other driver use the now-available tools to avoid them. People are both arrogant and ignorant on the road - because to them everything is more important than concentrating properly on the task at hand. Either that, or they are so narcisstic that they always need to be first in traffic and to hell with anyone else and what action those drivers need to take to avoid them.

In Sydney people will do whatever it takes to get one car ahead, no matter who is already on the road or in 'their way'.

Recently a car, knowing full well that their lane was ending changed lanes INTO me. Not cutting me off - we were side by side. They knew I was there, I was not in their blind spot and it was a clear day and I had full beam lights on. Now being in a rental car, and knowing that $3300 was about to go missing for months from my Amex while it all got sorted out through travel insurance and then recouping from at-fault driver, I took severe evasive action. This reinjured my wife's neck and she was taken to hospital the next day and was off work for a week.

While I succeeded in avoiding a property accident, it was clearly dangerous (for my wife) for me to do so. So I have learned a valuable lesson from this. Those now relying on my (and my car's) ability to avoid their stupidity may now do so at their own financial peril.

Many other examples of course, many unfortunately repeated in the multitude of threads on here about the stupidity of motorists (again the term driver deliberately avoided).

Too easy licencing (to avoid provision of expensive per-capita proper public transport in Australia), combined with increasing personal arrogance and selfishness may lay claim to a lot.

Unfortunately I cannot lay claim to the answer.