Cars Are Getting Safer and Somehow More Dangerous

Modern cars are starting to feel like smartphones on wheels. They’ve got lane-keeping, automatic braking, blind-spot warnings, and yet, accident data isn’t exactly going down in a straight line. The paradox is simple: the more clever the tech, the more opportunities there are for humans to mess it up.

Take the touchscreen obsession. Carmakers love them because they’re cheap to produce and look futuristic. Drivers, on the other hand, are discovering that trying to change the air-con setting on a 15-inch slab of glass at 70mph is basically like playing Fruit Ninja while piloting two tonnes of steel. A Swedish study found a driver in a 2005 Volvo with old-fashioned buttons completed four basic tasks in 10 seconds, covering 306 metres. The same tasks in an electric MG Marvel R took 44.6 seconds, that’s 1,372 metres travelled with eyes mostly off the road. If you’re wondering, yes, regulators are stepping in. From 2026, Euro NCAP will dock points unless cars bring back physical buttons for essentials.

Then there’s Tesla. Crash tests show the cars protect occupants well, the Model Y even scored a “Top Safety Pick+.” Yet real-world data puts Tesla drivers at the top of the accident tables, with 26.7 crashes per 1,000 drivers and nearly double the national fatal crash rate. The cars aren’t inherently unsafe; the drivers often are. Early adopters, flush with cash and fond of “Ludicrous Mode,” tend to lean a bit too hard on Autopilot or the accelerator. Tesla’s own stats claim Autopilot is ten times safer than average driving, but that conveniently ignores whether the crash was a fender-bender or fatal, and skips over the fact that mode confusion, not knowing who’s actually in charge, human or machine, is still a problem.

And here’s where I can add something personal. I owned a Tesla Model Y for a year and a half until it was written off after a truck hit me. Great car, genuinely, but I noticed something strange in how it shaped my driving. Compared with my Honda CR-V, I was far more likely to lean on the Tesla’s instant acceleration when pulling out of junctions or joining highways. It made me impatient. I felt like I could squeeze through gaps or get around slower cars in ways I never considered in the Honda. Autopilot, too, had an effect: after long stretches of using it, I found my spatial awareness dulled. Jumping back into the CR-V, I felt less engaged and less sharp, almost like the Tesla had softened my driving instincts over time. I loved the car, but I didn’t love what it did to my driving style.

ADAS (Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems) are a classic double-edged sword. Automatic Emergency Braking can cut rear-end collisions by up to 50%, Blind Spot Monitoring reduces lane-change injury crashes by 23%, and lane-departure systems trim head-on crashes by about 11%. These are big wins. But hand people tech that does half the driving and many will take it as permission to check TikTok. Studies show drivers using Adaptive Cruise Control are not only more likely to be distracted but also more likely to speed, because if the car is keeping its distance, why not set it 10mph over the limit?

The real future isn’t just more sensors and smarter screens. It’s about creating a traffic “hive mind.” Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) tech lets cars talk to each other, the road, even pedestrians. That means warnings about a crash around the corner or a car braking three vehicles ahead, all before you see it. NHTSA estimates V2X could prevent or reduce the severity of up to 80% of non-impaired crashes, something no single onboard gadget can match.

At the same time, Driver Monitoring Systems, cameras that track whether you’re awake, distracted, or about to nod off, are becoming mandatory in some regions. Throw in biometric sensors for heart rate or fatigue, and suddenly your car isn’t just keeping you alive in a crash, it’s actively trying to stop you from having one.

The bottom line: cars today are both safer and riskier than ever. Safety isn’t a software update or a bigger touchscreen. It’s a partnership. The machine is only as safe as the human piloting it, or choosing to ignore it.