Cars are becoming safer, but the people who drive them are not, a study by an insurance industry research group has found.
In fact, without design changes that have made vehicles safer, including the growing prevalence of air bags, the death toll on the nation's roads would be higher by about 5,000 people annually, more than 11 percent of last year's total, according to the study.
The reason, says the report by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, is that drunken driving rates have not changed much in the 10 years studied, seat belt use has climbed only slowly, and people are driving faster.
"We have lost focus on the human behavior side," said Adrian Lund, an author of the study, which examined the period from 1994 to 2004.
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