Not the op, but I'll note all of those tests are about what physically happens once you're in crash or specific situation. Many or most don't gauge how or why you got into that situation, or how likely you are to do so in that vehicle. I don't know how "firmware update made care less safe" or "adaptive cruise control disengaged unexpectedly" or (my personal concern) "car UI negatively impacted drivers situational awareness and reaction time" etc would show up in e.g. IIHS rating?

A good 10-20 year old car may have as good crash rating as many modern cars. top or average modern cars may be better than top or average 10 year old cars. Stats are interesting thing. But then there's the average driver assistance vs average UI vs average visibility vs average handling of these cars.

Bottom line, I don't feel less safe but I do feel differently safe, in my old Subaru and new Honda.

The point I was trying to make is that from crash safety point of view an upper tier car(for example a well equipped golf) made 20 years ago might be a lot safer than a cheapest modern car(at least here in EU where safety standards in 2000 were pretty good already, I have no idea about other countries). Yes, this is just a single anecdote, but I seriously doubt I would be here to tell it if I was driving let's say a 2014 Fiat Punto or similar.

Why do I compare an old "upper class car" with a modern "lowest tier"? Isn't this unfair? No, because that is usually the choice people have. If they can afford just the cheapest of new cars, there is likely a much better one that is not new available for the same price or a lot cheaper.

The last 25 years have seen some improvements, but nothing nearly as dramatic as the change between the 25 years prior to that. Seatbelts, airbags, crash testing and designing a car for survivability in case of an accident are all things that happened between 1970 and 1990, since then we've seen incremental improvements but for the most part things have not changed all that much. That's also why automobile manufacturers have trouble introducing new models because the older ones are really pretty good. The car I'm driving has gone through 2 upgrades since 1997 (the year it was built) and neither of those is a huge improvement safety wise over the one that I've got. The biggest question mark is probably the longevity of the pyrotechnics and the airbag materials, but for both I've been reassured multiple times by the dealership that they are fine (not something you want to test), and that this goes for any airbags manufactured after 1993 except for one particular notorious bad batch made by Takata, and those fortunately are not in my car.

I wouldn't say a road barrier had any positive effect on the situation. What probably saved the situation is that a 20 year old golf handles way better in a slip than the cheapest of current cars (at least back then in 2015) which was the usual choice when I rented at the time. Would I be doing 80mph in a Fiat Punto in the first place?Probably not. Would 60 mph be enough to loose traction in it? Who knows.

If you extend the time range to 25 years I might agree, but let's say we start at year 2000. I fail to see those "huge strides in vehicle safety". Perhaps what you mean is that certain "upper tier" features made their way into basic equipment. That no doubt has positive impact on an average driver.

However, at least for me, any time I bought/rented an old car it was always a top spec version, so as mentioned. I don't see those huge strides.

The US Clean Air Act is estimated to prevent over 200,000 premature deaths each and every year.

https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/benefits-and-cost...

Like it or not, old cars spew highly toxic crap out their exhaust.

In my case a fairly new C-class MB that decided that posts on bridges are in front of the car and not to the side and a large advertising board in a corner was about to be hit. In both of those cases the car turned what was a perfectly safe ride into instant near accident and if not for many years of experience I'm pretty sure the first would have resulted in a major crash. I got rid of the car after the second one.

Automatic emergency braking is probably great if all you do is highway traffic and stop-and-go but it really sucks that you can't disable it and that it isn't able to distinguish between safe and unsafe to a degree that it will turn a safe situation into an unsafe one all by itself. At that point in time a safety feature becomes a risk in itself. Possibly the statistics are still in favor of the solution but I'd rather take my chances.