Thanks, guys. Very interesting comments.
Some quick info from what I know:
Roadside obstacles are a huge problem,
beware of roads lined with trees or poles. A tree won't yield a bit, they are designed by nature exactly like high-tech skyscrapers: don't crash into trees! Poles are not designed by nature, but by us, the final effect is the same. Barriers are the answer. You should use New Jersey barriers to separate traffic: they are sloped at the base to push the car back into its lane.
The pole is intact! You won't
New Jersey Barrier: the key is the sloped edge at the base. Ask your politician, mayor or public works engineer for those barriers in high traffic roads divided only by a yellow double line!
New Jersey Barrier Analysis: it's the unseen front right wheel the one that helps more
Beware of roads where there are no flat run-off areas. Many people dies from cars rolling over when going out of the road and the lateral road slope is over a meager 10%.
Do anything you can to stay on the road when lateral slopes are higher than 10%: you will lose all control of the vehicle once you go out of pavement and you have a high chance of your car rolling over.
Do anything you can to avoid a frontal crash against a vehicle in the opposite direction. Be specially careful if you drive a small, sporty car: your "share" of the energy in the crash will be larger! Besides, if you go over the median, you can be hit repeatedly (I swear I've seen people surviving a frontal crash just to be erased by a truck that came later, unsuspectedly, into the collision).
Please, I beg you: the times of claiming "road speed records" are a thing of the past: leave earlier and
enjoy the trip. Get some music and sing, for example. There are few places on earth as good as a car with good speakers to learn about music and, to me, a trip is some kind of sighseeing movie.
Why? Well, when you go at twice the speed, your braking distance increases four times. So,
if you have to go fast, be careful of blind spots, like vertical curves (hills) and horizontal curves: if there is an obstacle on the road you're toasted. If you travel by night, the distance that lights allow you to see is fixed (lights won't illuminate farher when you go faster, isn't it?), so your chances of avoiding an object like a fallen tree branch, a stopped car or an animal are very slim.
Try to travel by day, by all means. It's very easy to fall asleep (or to meet an incoming car with a driver who has fallen asleep!).
Rumble strips are a very cost effective way to "wake-up" tired drivers
Besides, if you travel by night, try to move your eyes around the road.
The "standard method" to avoid being blinded by incoming car lights is this: look at the side of the road ahead, then look at the side of the incoming car (avoid watching the lights, of course) and then look at the middle of the road ahead of your car.
Keep moving the eyes in a triangle (far right, far left, middle ahead). Why? Well, your eyes have 120 million cells called cones: they detect colours under bright light. On the side of your retina you have 6 million cells called rods: they detect only light, in black and white, under poor lightning conditions. Rods are the cells you use to see by night: they are very sensitive to movement (remember actors keeping still to avoid being detected by the Tyrannosaur at Jurassic Park? People argues that dinosaurs couldn't detect still objects, because the retinas of frogs and, suposedly, of dinosaurs are made mainly of rods). If the "image" is not moving, move your eyes to allow the rod cells, the ones your eye uses to see under low light, to "enhance" their chances of detection.
Finally,
make a personal purpose of NOT hitting a pedestrian. Yes, you can crash your car and pay some money, but killing a pedestrian, a cyclist or a biker is a very different thing. You will be sorry all your life.
When you drive in roads lined with parked cars, watch ahead under the floor of trucks (it's the only way to detect a pedestrian jaywalking).
Be careful when you drive early in the morning (watch for people running or school kids), at the mid afternoon (when kids go out of school) and late in the night (because of drunken pedestrians).
More food for thought:
Things will get worse, says WHO (:) World Health Organization)
