@nevstah
Good points, but having grown up in a rural area and moved to the city, I'm willing to bet the so-called brain boffin didn't bother to properly analyze his data. In either location I'd rather be driving with people who learned to drive in the rural America than the line crowding, tailgating, non-signaling when changing lanes morons from the city. I'd put up a paycheck that at least half of those rural accidents were caused by city drivers.
Hell, it takes me a week to decompress and get back to good driving practices* when I visit my parents who still live where I grew up.
*in practice for where I live I found the following definitions to be true:
- Safe following distance is your front quarter panel placed at about the mid-point of the rear quarter panel of the car next to you
- Safe speed is 10 mph over the posted limit in patrolled areas, 15-20 in unpatrolled areas, dead in known locations for speed cameras.
- the first 3 seconds of a red light are optional, so be prepared when you get a green
- on divided highways with two lanes on either side, the passing lane is the safe travel lane
- never use a turn signal for a lane change, that's really a signal for the guy next to you to move to Safe Following distance as defined above
Oh, and rush hour accidents are just the randomizers for relocating the usual slowdowns.