This paragraph just seemed like a fancier version of the “nut behind the wheel” excuse:

Above all, though, the problem seems to be us — the American public, the American driver. “It’s not an exaggeration to say behavior on the road today is the worst I’ve ever seen,” Capt. Michael Brown, a state police district commander in Michigan, told me. “It’s not just the volume. It’s the variety. There’s impaired driving, which constituted 40 percent of our fatalities last year. There are people going twice the legal limit on surface streets. There’s road rage,” Brown went on. “There’s impatience — right before we started talking, I got an email from a woman who was driving along in traffic and saw some guy fly by her off the roadway, on the shoulder, at 80, 90 miles an hour.” Brown stressed it was rare to receive such a message: “It’s got so bad, so extremely typical,” he said, “that people aren’t going to alert us unless it’s super egregious.”

My immediate mental response to this police captain was:

• Yes, drivers are driving too fast, but most city streets should be constructed to make that all but impossible (raised crosswalks, continuous sidewalks, narrowed lanes, barriers, trees, etc.).
• Yes, drivers are overly aggressive or impatient, and police/prosecutors don’t prosecute them when they commit acts of road rage, and state legislatures outlaw the use of red-light or speed cameras in many instances.
• Yes, drivers drink and drive, because we have a nation full of bars that can’t be accessed without a car and it’s not safe to walk home from the pub where there are no sidewalks.
• Yes, drivers are on their phones, because they never get caught or prosecuted and most new cars integrate mobile devices and encourage their usage.

Other countries have highways, cell phones, and bad drivers, but their injury/fatality rates are much lower. The difference is American road design, the size/weight of American vehicles, and the lack of transportation alternatives in most communities in America.