I remember in primary school, an actual police officer told us pretty much the same thing during one of those road safety classes. Road traffic collisions are almost never accidents, always incidents.

I totally agree and fully encourage people to not drive whenever possible. Most of the truly stupid drivers won't do that though

I was obviously not referring to people with medical conditions. The average able-bodied person should be able to safely operate a vehicle without causing an accident.

Driving a car is absurdly difficult, incredibly dangerous, takes only a second of distraction to kill yourself and others

Yes and no.

It seems that most people are falsely convinced (or even peer-pressured to some extent) that you must drive at the speed limit or even above it. But you actually don't have to. You must adjust your speed for weather conditions, road conditions, traffic intensity, surrounding safety infrastructure (or lack of it) and your skills and current condition.

It seems that learning how to choose your speed is missing from most driving courses worldwide. Sometimes, road maintenance provides some advice on that, for example in France you have different speed limits for wet/dry road. But in other cases drivers ignore that guidance - sometimes highway speed limit is lowered due to lack of hard shoulder or animal fences but very few people understand that and most just ignore the limit.

And then there's your own condition - if you're tired, slow down, your kids are crying in the back, slow down, you're on new road, slow down, have a gut feeling, slow down!

What you're describing is actually mostly a case for driving too fast for given conditions. Even if you're not speeding but you can't read and comprehend signs, road, other cars, pedestrians and navigation - you're driving too fast, slow down.

So I think both your and OP's comments boil down to attention. As long as you remember essential driving rules and pay attention to road, surroundings and those rules it's difficult to cause an accident. But if your attention is slipping then it's a slippery slope.

And if you observe that you often struggle to pay attention to one of those things, you should review your actions and skills and apply necessary corrections.

Driving is easy in a way that it's schematic and there are not many rules compared to say aviation. But it's not mindless! You must think about your skills, capabilities and your state of mind and act according to those. In aviation pilots do thorough risk assessment before and during flight, and drivers should do that as well. What makes driving easier than flying is that when you identify the risk as too high you can just slow down or stop.

So to summarise. For God's sake SLOW DOWN! It saves lives.

I never said it didn't suck, but it only sucks because other people are terrible drivers. It isn't absurdly difficult at all unless you're incredibly incompetent.

I can agree with some of your response to what was said by the other commenter, but my impression is that person was shocked that someone at a young age has been involved in double digit accidents that mostly sound like their fault. Some people really just are incapable of driving, though that shouldn't diminish that small lapses or true accidents do happen.

I would disagree that driving in general is miserable, though I'm sure this can vary by location. While i would prefer better access to efficient public transit (live in the USA), being able to get in a car and go anywhere is pretty freeing, provided it isn't during high volume times, especially on a freeway.

Also, an accident is just a matter of time / miles. You can be the most careful driver in the world and a car can pull in front of you on the freeway and come to a dead stop. You'll hit them from behind and the insurance company will blame you.

Ok so obviously if you have a medical condition that makes you unsafe to drive, you shouldn't drive. If you don't maintain your car that's entirely on you. If you choose a car with poor visibility you're purposefully endangering everyone around you so you shouldn't drive. If you don't understand the rules, you certainly shouldn't be allowed to drive but that's a whole separate issue.