A new report from the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety credits safer cars, not safer drivers, for the decrease in highway deaths over that past decade.

In fact, the report says that in the absence of improved safety features, crash fatalities would have increased over the past 12 years.

In other words, “an increasingly dangerous traffic environment has been offset since 1994 only because people are driving vehicles that are more protective,” says IIHS president Adrian Lund.

According to the report, speed limit libertarians now have to eat their words. Proponents of higher speed limits have long gloated because rising speed limits have paralleled declining highway fatalities. According to the institute, however, they may now have to switch gears and find a new rationale for higher limits, because the numbers show that car safety improvements obscured the true cost of speeding.

The question implicit in report is clear and ominous: how long can we keep this up? If we’re in the sweet spot right now, where advances in automotive safety are outpacing the increase in highway danger brought by higher speeds, more crowded roads, and more devices to distract us from driving, how long can we maintain it? Will advances in technology always outpace the dangers of driving?

Optimists will say yes, and they’ve got some impressive inventions to back up their claims–electronic stability control being one of them. (See Penny’s post for more information on this feature.)

Here’s a question to ponder: Do safer cars make us more nonchalant behind the wheel? No one wants to get in an accident, but does the person who buys the armored SUV with ESC take more risks than the next guy?

[Links]:
Insurance Institute of Highway Safety
MSN: The Least-Safe Cars of 2006
Forbes: The Safest Cars of 2006