Jesus H. This is what you should be always doing when you're driving. This is how driving has always been, but people turn off their brains and pick up the cell phone. Too bad it only takes people a week to get back to complacency.
EDIT: I would love to know why you downvote this. Genuinely curious.
The Wikipedia page on "Micromort" claims giving birth is equivalent to about two years of driving, and living in NYC during the covid pandemic was equivalent to about one year of driving per day.
Also, bicycling and walking seem to be at least an order of magnitude more dangerous than driving, per km.
Saying if you die before 50, it's likely to involve cars is just another way of saying most other hazards don't kill people before 50, so it could be viewed as a misuse of statistics.
Like if you don't swivel your head and check for cyclists before opening your drivers side doors or do the Dutch reach [1], you're still probably not going to hit a cyclist. Until you do.
[1] https://www.bicyclenetwork.com.au/tips-resources/know-how/du...
Doing these is realiable only if it is matter of habit and you do them automatically, without thinking about it. If you have to focus on it, you will forget about it.
Same with evaluating who goes first on intersection without lights. You should not go through the whole "wait he is from right, but the other is turning ..." you should look at it and know.
There's some good discussion here on the topic. Japan's rail workers point and speak, because it keeps the safety checks in the attentive part of your brain. When things go automatic / unconscious, you tend to miss or gloss over things. This is not what you want while driving.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18952193
Even pilots are taught to point and say their checks out loud during pre-flight. And flying happens to be one of the safest ways to travel.