Other countries are comparable in being rich and having safe cars. I don’t know what your experience abroad was like but plenty of developed countries do not have sufficient infrastructure for people to avoid cars. In Western Europe, for example you’ll find car ownership is high except for the cities where it is not necessary, much like you’ll find that car ownership is high in America outside of (central) New York and a few other places.[1]

One big difference is Americans tend to drive bigger heavier cars that perform poorly in collisions. I am not confident about other differences (rates of texting, drink driving, road design, etc). A commonly made claim is that Americans drive more. This is true[2] but I don’t think the degree is high enough to explain the difference, though there are lots of things one could say are lost in that data.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicle...

[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1013213/passenger-kilome... (remember to divide by population) or https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar4.htm (very old!)