[twoWhlsGud]

Anti-lock brakes, if I remember correctly, had essentially no safety effect in the real world. Stability control, on the other hand, dropped single car accidents by something like a third. Perhaps you were thinking of that?

Regardless of that, the threat environment has changed pretty dramatically in the last two decades. I gave up my 2006 VW sedan for a new SUV this year because the IIHS numbers had started to look bad for lighter vehicles.

https://www.iihs.org/ratings/driver-death-rates-by-make-and-...

Back in 2006 the previous gen VW Passat was basically as safe as anything you could buy (according to their dataset). Now you need something a lot bigger to be upper tier.

The new vehicle is a plug-in so in the first 4 months of driving I've more than doubled my fuel efficiency. So there's that, anyway.

[evgen]

You are correct, I was thinking of stability control. Both were mandated by NHTSA at the same time I think.