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There are also other ways to successfully lower the death count, but as the recent NY Times column [0] says the American culture is working hard against any improvements based on restrictions.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/19/opinion/america-is-now-an...

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Is it fair to compare the US to Europe?

US has an extremely different driving culture than Europe. ~13500miles/year for the US; ~8000miles/year for Europe. ~800 cars per 1000 people in the US; ~550-600 per 1000 in Europe.

Also, a larger number of people in the US simply couldn't live life without a car. I'm sitting in my hometown, a mere hour drive away from the largest city in the US, and I'd have to walk 45min to the nearest food. Work would be a 10 mile bike ride each way. This is New Jersey, the most densely populated state in the US.

The seatbelt thing is just us being dumb though.

The cars in Europe are generally much smaller too.

Their metric is "deaths per billion vehicle miles travelled", so yes, I think it's a fair comparison.

It naturally scales up and down to match the amount of driving that happens in different countries.

I'm only deeply familiar with the US and UK, but the contrast there is pretty stark. I routinely see people on their phones or driving drunk in the US. Those do happen in the UK but they're a lot rarer.

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