[mazabotman]

Cars can only ever be as safe as the person driving.

Too many drivers of "fast powerful" cars are not properly trained and tend to drive thinking they own the road and are often the cause of accidents to others trying to evade them, like having to brake or swerve into collisions when they get "cut up".

You suggest restricting drivers to a certain power/weight/performance vehicle, this should be mandatory, plus driver initial training for say the first 250 miles or more should be on a special track/course, not the open road .

A few other things that need attention, some means of disabling the use of mobile phones unless a vehicle is stationary with the engine off. There should be more use made of the automatic number plate recognition capabilty, fixed video cameras at a lot of locations fed into the network, that would soon sort out the untaxed, uninsured and untested vehicles. Anyone convicted of driving when drunk or on drugs, their car should be confiscated as well as fines &/or imprisonment especially if they have caused an accident.

The biggest lesson to learn is that "when driving assume that every other person an the road is a complete idiot."

Even allowing some credence to the "you may need the acceleration to get out of a tricky situation" I still see no need for the excessive power/speed/acceleration of many of the cars on offer today, (like Porsche Cayenne Turbo, top speed over 180MPH) given theBritish roads and speed limits. Probably if you were not already driving at or above the limit you might not have got into the tricky situation anyway. Life has enough risks in it without adding more. Maybe there is a need for a speed limiter that cuts in at say 80 MPH, or possibly adjusts to say limit plus 10 - 15% on signals from roadside equipment where speed limits change.