If you’re inattentive while going so fast and so close that it’s a fatality rather than a fender bender, you’re already making a big gamble with your safety.

Remember that the background here is 40k dead and hundreds of thousands injured, and costs estimated at close to a trillion dollars annually (what we pay for car insurance is so low that driving is effectively subsidized by the medical system and people’s well-being and productivity[1]). The question has to be whether there are significantly fewer crashes with these systems than without.

1. https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/01/18/why-car-i...

Incentive to stop tailgating