Car safety always has been and always will be a bit of a joke. There is no doubt that modern cars are way safer than even in the 80’s. But take that evolutionary scale and hold it up to a true measure of safety, and it will just be a thin line in the big picture.
Here’s why: No matter how much crash protection we put into these cars, we are ultimately just driving around in a two-ton box of steel and plastic, surrounded by a whole bunch of other idiots doing the same thing. If you define “Most Safest” as hiding in a concrete bunker where you won’t even trip and fall on a crack in the sidewalk, and “Least Safest” as, say, standing in front of a machine gun, then driving any car at 60mph down a road with another car coming at you at 60mph in the other lane, with only a yellow line on the pavement to keep you separated, is nearer the top of that safety scale than the bottom.
If we didn’t have cars, and somebody today invented the idea of individually-controlled automobiles (and trucks!) being driven around with people inside, we’d think that that someone was nuts!