That was still true 25 years later and for a few lucky ones it still is today. I think parents compensate the time they cannot spend with their children with exaggerating measures for their safety. Or for social signaling people are very concerned about safety in general because they have no other channel to show that they care.

I can understand it in a large cities though, traffic has indeed become more dangerous because the density increased massively. Not from the US, but the usual horror story you hear is that you cannot leave your kids running around or risk getting called CPS on you.