Is the method you described not another form of inferential statistics? (Definitely not hypothesis testing however).

It seems that this is a combination of several techniques:

1. First, we either explicitly or implicity choose a model to relate deaths and RTOR laws (perhaps a linear relationship, i.e. [deaths w/ RTOR] = a*[deaths w/o RTOR]).

2. Then we perform point estimation to estimate the parameter "a".

3. Then we compute a confidence interval.

With respect to the RTOR example in the paper, it seems to me that it WOULD be incorrect to reject the null hypothesis that the change in crash numbers arises from random chance for ANY INDIVIDUAL STUDY. In this case it seems that you must figure out a way to transfer information between studies to establish this idea of "statistical significance." Perhaps a survey of studies or usage of bayesian techniques would have resolved the difficulty.