I think this is a pretty fair point. Cars are incredibly dangerous to others and many drivers completely disregard that. A 5-star safety rating doesn't mean anything to the pedestrian or cyclist in front of you, but people tend to act like it's no big deal since they themselves are unlikely to be seriously injured.

Risk homeostasis or risk compensation explains this behavior quite well, and I believe it's a very damaging affliction on our car-centric society: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation

Before cars, when horses were the typical mode of transportation, they were quite dangerous too. I haven't done research to quantify it, but I've noticed while reading random articles on historical people in Wikipedia, that quite a few died falling off a horse. Even in modern times, the few people who ride horses often have accidents - I bet you can name a famous one without looking it up...

    > A 5-star safety rating doesn't
    > mean anything to the pedestrian
    > or cyclist in front of you[...]

It does, the Euro NCAP now includes pedestrian and cyclist safety in their assessments[1].

1. https://www.euroncap.com/en/press-media/press-releases/new-l...