Yes, it seems like the safer they make vehicles, the more drivers take that as a challenge. People buy big cars with a hundred air bags in them and a super-safe crash rating, then they figure that means they can go out and drive like a moron. They get traction control and ABS and that means they get to drive that much faster. You only need to be aware of the fact that 40-car pileups DO occur to see that idiocy still reigns; having a super safe car doesn't mean that it's a good idea to keep going 60 MPH at a 1/2 second following distance in dense fog or on icy roads.

Someone on this board used to say that the best way to make people start driving reasonably would be to put a big steel spike right in the middle of the steering wheel. You get in an accident, you die, guaranteed. People would drive quite carefully indeed. Clearly hyperbole, but it's a fact that even though cars of today are vastly safer than cars of 20 years ago, there's only a few percent less fatalities now than there used to be.