>  ... and that doesn't even take into account accidents that aren't pure 
> head-on collisions.

I read somewhere recently (source unrecalled) that 30 to 40% of US road 
"accidents" are "drift offs" with the vehicle leaving the road apparently 
unnecessarily (left or right) without another vehicle being involved in this 
occurring. (Another vehicle may be subsequently struck but didn't cause it 
to start happening).

One can wonder about the reason for such accidents happening. One would 
presume loss of concentration or going to sleep. Percentage seems high. 
(Long ago I went to sleep on a motorbike and fell off at about 50 mph :-). 
That was under very taxing conditions but I would hardly have credited that 
it was possible.)

Re road deaths. National annual death toll of any country is ~ 
Population/life_expectancy.
Figures out of air for US of say 350 million and 75 years give ~4.5 million 
/year. If that's 250 million and 80 years it's still 3.3 million PA. Besides 
that the 60,000 pa road toll is about 2%. Every unnecessary death is a 
personal tragedy, but put as a % of annual deaths the road toll is 
relatively insignificant. And 911 amounted to about 0.1% of annual rate. (US 
Iraq total deaths to date is about 0.05% of one years US deaths from all 
causes - but focussed by age and occupation). Every life counts, but the 
affect of any of this on the *average* persons life expectancy ranges from 
smallish to utterly minimal. Which won't make anyone feel even a tiny bit 
better about it of course.,




        RM 

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