Difficult one to answer in the factual sense Steve, the first problem being is how do you measure "Bad driving" if its by the number of collisions then standards will have risen as there are fewer collisions now, in fact I think I saw a report earlier today stating that the collision rate has fallen dramatically over the past two years. However if you then take into account that a fair number of collision black spots will now have Gatso camera's nearby that will have had an effect on the number of collisions in addition to improved road layouts and surfaces to improve vision and grip etc.
As Xac mentioned car design particularly in the area of suspension and braking has made massive strides forward which allows even the novice to swerve around hazards like never before due to ABS and in particular the electronic stability systems fitted to most new cars for the past few years. So if you were to use the number of collisions per year to measure driving standards the conclusion would be that they have improved significantly.
Another method you could put forward is how many people are Police prosecuting for offences directly linked to bad driving? Well there I'd almost guarantee the numbers are now much lower than years ago as the number of Traffic Officers has fallen dramatically over the past decade and especially over the past year with the Government cut backs. The trouble that Governments have with Traffic Policing is that its viewed as a "victimless crime" because the more people who are prosecuted for traffic offences the bigger the problem is seen to be so remove the number of Officers patrolling which will lower the number of prosecutions and you'll remove the problem, driving standards have now improved, simples
The fact that road deaths and injuries cost society fortunes financially isn't that much of a Government problem as insurance companies kop the bill which is passed onto motorists in higher premium costs, little impact on tax revenues so the problem isn't really given the priority it should be. Never mind the misery for those with friends and relatives suffering the loss of a loved one, Politicians will cry on a victims relatives shoulder and say all the right things but will central government do much about it? No.
The cost of running Traffic Police is very high indeed so its not difficult to see why they have been cut right back, in addition to at least six weeks of car driver training running at something like £2500 per student per week (three per car) they have another three weeks of motorcycle training plus all the leathers, helmets etc which have to be of the highest quality because if they crash, litigation,,,, Then add in what's called "The Nut and Bolt Course" where they are taught basic car examination skills for construction and use offences followed by the Advanced course on that subject, oh and don't forget the collision investigation courses which run for weeks and weeks and are all verified by outside examination boards. Having done all that they use high performance cars such as BMW 5 Series but the higher costing vehicles are in fact the motorcycles, which have a higher cost per mile than the cars believe it or not.
The DSA are always looking for ways to improve driving standards by making the driving test harder and more realistic, one idea they looked at was to reduce the number of minor faults allowed during a test but research revealed that the only result would be more females failing due to females generally accruing a higher number of faults when undertaking slow speed manoeuvres so back to square one with that idea.
I believe its fair to say that car design has had an effect upon driving standards in that cars from the 1950's and 60's not only had such poor handling and grip they were also very poor in protecting their occupants and many more people were seriously hurt and injured, so people drove slower and had a greater understanding of car handling because if you didn't you'd crash regularly and get hurt. Yes those old cars had excellent vision due to super thin pillars but the integral shell strength was very low so they would collapse like a deck of cards, I dread the thought of having a collision in my DS as I know it will all but fall apart because DS's do, look on youtube to see that. Even better search on youtube for old Yank Tanks crashing, they look as if they were made of jelly the way the fall apart. Research has shown that the best way to improve driving standards is to fit a bayonet to the steering wheel of every car, fancy a crash with that compared to having an airbag there?
All of the above is little more than opinion though but from my own experience of instructing and assessing hundreds of Police Officers over many years the general level of skill behind the wheel has undoubtedly fallen, when I look back to 1985 when I undertook my Advanced Course and compare it with the present course there is a fair old difference to be honest, its now easier to pass as the leeway for errors is much higher. The reasons are many and varied but come down to money, training is expensive and failures cost even more so research was carried out to identify what particular errors were being made that caused students to fail, once that was done many of those elements were removed from the testing procedure, one for instance was the final drive in the IRV course which was done in unmarked cars driving without blues and two's. That was stopped about five years ago, the pass rate improved so senior Police Officers then claimed that they had improved driver training methods as the pass rate was now higher
Interestingly another thing that changed was doing the Advanced Course final drive in an automatic car as some (non Instructors) thought that they'd improve the pass rate as manual transmission cars caused drivers to "waste" concentration balancing the pedals and selecting the correct gear
in fact the pass rate didn't improve, the only result was that students would now enter hazards too quickly as they no longer needed to allow time for the gear phase prior to entering the hazard and continued to brake around corners etc, result, students now failing for excess speed on the approach to hazards. There's a reason the Met Police Driving School at Hendon have "Experientia Docet" as their motto
I illustrate the above as a way to show how statistics are manipulated for a particular effect and not for the better overall. In the Police the overall collision rate has been consistently falling for quite a few years now but I and my colleagues at the Driving School know for a fact that the level of driving skills within the Police has fallen over the years so one way or another car design and road layout is having an effect.
Many times I have been sat next to a student driving at high speed when I've noticed the DSC (Dynamic Stability Control) light flashing to signify that the system has been activated due to one or wheels having lost traction yet the driver continued totally unaware that a computer had now effectively taken control of the car as they had exceeded the available level of traction, invariably when I pointed this out the drivers response was no more than "Oh",,,,,,,,,,
they only responded to me in that way once
Its instances like that where had they been driving an older car not so equipped where the car would have undoubtedly gone into some sort of skid and possibly out of control,,,,,,
Overall I think you have to look at society in general, undoubtedly people today are far less tolerant of others and too interested in themselves, standards of politeness have fallen dramatically which have been transferred to behind the wheel so these days people are far more likely to cut up another motorist and not care a jot, especially when the chances of being pulled up for it are all but nil as there are so few Police left patrolling, a situation that's getting worse by the day. None of this is new though and
this 1950's Disney cartoon "Motor Mania" explains the situation so well that I used it as an instructional aid in the classroom, click on the link its well worth seven minutes of your time.
The biggest factor in driving which is difficult to train into students to maintain consistently is having the correct attitude, what we call "The Human Aspect". A very good book on the subject was written by Dr Gordon Sharp who examined why the highest trained drivers in the country (Police Advanced Drivers) still have collisions which can be of the most basic nature, as expected of a novice, the common cause was found to be attitude, fail to concentrate, try to impress others or worse still suffer from "Red mist" and you'll make the most basic of errors.
So in answer to your original question I'd agree with the original statement but proving it factually is somewhat difficult.
