Actually, that's the funny thing: drivers don't kill drivers. Not even collisions kill drivers. It's just that some people, post-collision, have their heart stop. So really, if you think about it, their own heart killed them. We should mark them all as suicides, honestly.

In this usage, "road" means more than the asphalt. It includes the cars on it as well as objects that could be crashed into, such as light posts, nearby trees, etc. If it is a road without a guardrail next to a cliff, it includes the ground at the bottom of cliff, since that is probably what's going to kill you, not the road itself.

You could express it in a way that would be correct to all the pedants out there, but it might be a long convoluted sentence.

The drivers aren't necessarily more dangerous. They might just be driving more dangerously with less traffic. It's easier to die going 80 on the freeway than if you're stuck in gridlock.

I think we can at least agree that the statement "the roads are safer" is false.

Rush hour isn’t gridlock everywhere

Plenty of places are increased traffic but not bumper to bumper

This is all rounding numbers that have been rounded already to smooth out uniqueness of a given locale

Water is wet level conclusion that using math correctly by math rules to debate a topic that’s locally unique and out of view for people in far flung regions.

My individual odds of dying in an accident haven’t changed much. Safer or worse in some aggregate measure isn’t that useful to me today or tomorrow. Still gonna do as I do.

Inertia kills drivers