> US rates of accidents and deaths are much much higher than anywhere in Europe.
That's actually only true per population. If you measure per miles driven the US does better then Europe (although Europe is large, and numbers vary in different countries).
The US is 7.3 if you use the same dataset as France. The wiki puts in 8.3 because they have updated data for the US, but not for France.
There are also some differences in data methodology US vs European countries, and when checked the rates from a different source (it was a while ago, I'll have to try to dig it up) the US came out better by comparison.
I think the difference had to do with what counted as a KM traveled.
That's actually only true per population. If you measure per miles driven the US does better then Europe (although Europe is large, and numbers vary in different countries).