Yeah, but you have the knowledge and skills that you can determine if a beater car is worth the effort. Most people, however, do not have either of these... they get shafted by car salespeople who just want to push cars off their lot and fleece people later-on for repairs.
And the problem just gets worse with more modern cars - I can fix up something like a Volkswagen T4 van or probably, if it comes around, a lot of shit on any 90s era car. But for anything more modern, particularly stuff where you need specialized diagnostic toolkits, 2000ish Renaults where you have to plan three to four hours for a headlight replacement [1] or built out of aluminium or worse, composite material? Fuck that, I'm out. Modern car construction has completely sacrificed repairability in favour of crash resistance, lighter weight and/or cheaper assembly.
[1] https://www.ehow.co.uk/how_6471814_replace-headlight-renault...
There are a few outliers such as some older Fords that were over engineered but, generally speaking, observe the 4 points above and you won't go far wrong.
You might be subject to lesser risks, especially in a country like Denmark, but many people have at least some of the following risks of a car breaking down in the middle of the road:
1) collision. Simply being on a high speed road outside of your vehicle is one of the riskier things you can do in many parts of the world.
2) not being able to work and/or getting terminated from job
3) being stranded with young children
4) needing to be somewhere to take care of your dependents
5) woman being stranded by herself
6) being stranded in too hot or too cold weather
Even though you describe the number of yours that have died on the highway as "some".
Now, cars are insanely taxes in Denmark, near 300%, and they lose about half their value the first year of ownership.
Every 2 years, there is a mandatory inspection of the car.
I buy a car with the following requirements: 1. My strong intuition that it can survive for 2 years with zero maintenance. 2. After 2 years, my TCO will be less than if I rented a new car. 3. It's freshly inspected so I don't need to worry about that for the next 2 years.
Sure, I get to drive old cars, but I bear zero risk, if I crash it, or someone drives into it, or I chose to use it as a ladder while wearing muddy boots (has happned) to reach something up high, I can do it, I can treat it as trash, it does not matter, it's not losing any value because I already wrote it off. A rental car, you can't destroy.. I feel having a car that I can destroy is worth more than driving a new car.
If, after 2 years, it looks like it can pass inspection, I try, and if it's cheap to fix, I fix what needs fixing, and drive another 2 years. This is a super-win situation, because then my yearly COO becomes about half of what it costs to rent. If it can't pass inspection, I toss it, and buy a new one and I have "broken even" compared to renting.
I get the "don't worry about maintenance" perk of renting combined with "not getting in trouble if it's pretty beaten up when I'm done with it" perk of owning.
Sure, it means that I run a risk of a sudden breakdown, in that case, I'll get it towed (to junk or home to fix) and I'll have to take the bus, work from home or arrange a day off for fixing it, but it's been my experience that it almost never happens that a freshly inspected car fails randomly within the two years until next inspection.