[dsfyu404ed]

A lot of improvements in vehicle safety were made between 1990ish and 2005ish. Around 2004-14 period the older cars that teenagers drive would have started being models with airbags and ABS. Neither of these have much impact on fatalities among "average drivers" but young driver's propensity to crash into things at very high speed and propensity to load more people than seat-belts into vehicles plays right into the use cases where these technologies will save the most lives. Cars from the mid '00s on up will also have much stiffer cabins because of a bunch of rollover and side impact rule changes that took effect around then.

[genman]

Rate of fatal car accidents in US is about twice as that in Germany and Germans have autobahn with no speed limits drinking beer and then driving is part of their culture.