Assault, a common violent crime, doesn't actually require the person charged to have caused harm - no intent to cause physical injury needs to exist, and no physical injury needs to result - simply proving that one caused "apprehension of imminent contact" in the victim satisfies the legal definition of assault. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/assault
Driving offenses are also arbitrarily coded for easy enforcement - speed isn't as closely related to risk as following distance. If you exceed 80 mph in VA then that's considered reckless driving (a jailable offense), while no minimum following distance is enforced. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reckless_driving#Virginia
When you and me read the word "violent crime" we think of Joker with a bloody baseball bat beating up Jason Todd. For government a lady defending herself from rapist boyfriend could be violent crime. She was just too poor to put up a proper defence. I can show you plenty of people especially women from poor neighbourhoods who chose violence for perfectly legitimate reason but narcissist DA charged them and offer them 1 year guilty plea or potential 10 year jail.
I don't buy government's definition of "violent crime" to the slightest and refuse to treat the entire group as some evil people who can not even drive Uber.
> How are multiple serious driving offences ordinary?
Again it boils down to what "serious driving offence" means. A most of them are something which I would just laugh at. Failure to renew vehicle registration, excessive speeding, failure to stop and exchange information after a collision or property damage (most common for poor people).
While I would treat DUI as a serious red flag I will totally overlook failure to renew vehicle registration or failure to exchange information after collision.