[brokenrhino]

I wonder is the drop in car accident death caused by; 1) Cash for clunkers taking old dangerous cars off the road so the fleet consists of more newer safer cars or; 2) People driving less since the recession and the gas price increases

[bippi]

I would bet it would be more likely related to '1'.

I know insurance rates went down across the board 1-2 years back. It's hard to get a car without traction control and ABS now, which makes a huge difference.

According to this study, vehicle stability control really does decrease crashes.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3217442/

[dekhn]

I don't know about cash for clunkers but america's car fleet turnover is 14 years. So from the invention of a new safety measure, to its broad introduction across all new cars, to cars with the feature being predominant, is ~20 years.