The last 12 years mostly replaced attention-preserving tactile controls with attention-demanding screens.
Coexisting with that decreased ability is a race-to-the bottom where new vehicles kill visibility for everyone else (headlights blind ahead; oversizing erases visibility of every car around).
I have never felt less safe on the road.
And for the privilege, everyone's insurance rates climb and climb and climb - unreasonably punishing people who don't drive super-expensive-to-repair vehicles.
But I was thinking more about passive safety improvements from body structure engineering and auto-braking systems.
In the last 12 years we have seen the following:
1. Further proliferation of 360 cameras, blind spot monitors, rear and front cameras, digital rear view mirrors, and even some vehicles with in-dash blind-spot cameras and including them down-market. This directly translates to fewer fatalities, especially of children.
2. Further proliferation of HUDs and including them down-market, including augmented reality HUDs from the germans, allowing drivers to keep their eyes on the road for a larger percentage of the drive. This directly translates to fewer fatalities per mile
3. Better auto-high beam systems, including truly amazing systems from the Germans (to reduce the dazzle issue you brought up above). Also down-market movement of things like auto-turning lights to improve safety of turning at night.
4. Huge improvements in automatic front and rear emergency braking, including for people, cyclists, and children. This is likely the most impactful, and has massively reduced deaths, and minimized the harm of situations that do become harmful.
5. Some cars have automatic evasive turn systems, which occasionally intervene and prevent crashes before they happen similar to 4.
6. Some newer cars have safety stuff like automatic crash based loud noise systems (prepare ears for crash), automatic crash based seat belt pre-tension systems and similar systems to mitigate crash damage. Onstar automatically calls emergency services regardless if you pay and speeds up ambulance and thus life-saving care.
7. Carplay/Android Auto means less time fumbling with deciding where to go. Huge amounts of distraction caused by shit infotainment systems.
So done with people acting like driving is worse because we took 1 or 2 steps back for every 7 we take forward. Ludditism is the human death drive externalized in a lesser form.
As a broader extension of the article's point, testing only crashes is a fundamentally flawed approach to the survivability onion, the safest car is the one that doesn't get into a collision in the first place, i.e. one that's smaller and provides the driver with better visibility. More recent cars may be more heavily armoured but less safe.