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Nominull comments on How to avoid dying in a car crash - Less Wrong
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Rather than all of these efforts to mitigate somewhat the dangers of driving, why don't you just take public transportation?
Unfortunately, taking public transportation means you have to walk, and walking is 12 times as dangerous per mile as driving (hat tip: bentarm). Of course if you're driving you typically have to walk some distance from your parking spot also.
I wonder if the stats for walking and bicycle riding are not somewhat skewed by people who are walking or riding due to license suspension from drunk driving. I have known a few people who took up cycling for this reason.
And if you think drunk driving is dangerous, drunk cycling is orders of magnitude worse. Drunk walking is also highly dangerous http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunk_walking.
That's my own solution too. I'm lucky to live in a place here it's possible - Paris' suburb - and I almost never use a car (I don't even own one).
When you make the maths of how much a car costs (buying it, insurance, fixing it and having it checked regularly, gas, ...), the risks they come with, and the fact that driving is lost time (while in public transports you can take a book and read, or use a laptop for a long enough train trip), public transports is a clear winner to me. And exceptionally call a taxi when you can't go somewhere, that'll still cost less than a car.
Most people, when told their 30 minute car trip would take 1 hour by bus, would not read for 30 additional minutes once they get home, so while reading or using your laptop is worth more than doing nothing, it's worth less than what you'd be doing if you weren't on the trip. All you're doing is cutting your losses. And depending on how you value things, this could very well mean the loss from the time on the bus is still greater even after considering that you can read so it's not a complete loss.
Furthermore, I listen to podcasts in the car. By your reasoning this counts as the driving not being lost time anyway.
In some places there is way too little public transportation, though. Where I live there are pretty much no buses after 8 pm.
I am so glad to live in a city (London) where I really do not need a car and it's much more cost-effective to just hire one for a holiday or whatever. On the other hand, I live in London.