> Also, if we think of other road users, less safe cars might encourage the driver to drive more carefully and less likely to endanger others.
I really hope you intended this as satire. Over a million people die each year in road traffic accidents because people aren't perfect and have accidents. Feeling safe in a car has very little to do with how safe the car itself it, and more to do with how "normal" travelling in a car feels.
If the driver risk compensates, as suggested in research below, the risk to people in the car stays the same by having fewer accidents in less safe cars but the risks to other road users also decrease.
Also, the driving and road culture in most lower income developing countries are very different from those in developed countries.
"Anti-lock brakes are the subject of some experiments centred around risk compensation theory, which asserts that drivers adapt to the safety benefit of ABS by driving more aggressively. In a Munich study, half a fleet of taxicabs was equipped with anti-lock brakes, while the other half had conventional brake systems. The crash rate was substantially the same for both types of cab, and Wilde concludes this was due to drivers of ABS-equipped cabs taking more risks, assuming that ABS would take care of them, while the non-ABS drivers drove more carefully since ABS would not be there to help in case of a dangerous situation.[26]"
Also, if we think of other road users, less safe cars might encourage the driver to drive more carefully and less likely to endanger others.
Edit: I mean that in the context of India where cars, mopeds, bikes, tuk-tuks, and pedestrains intermingle. See the image in the article.